McDowell accused of being a 'serial leaker'

The leaking of information about journalist Frank Connolly by the Minister for Justice was raised in the Dáil during a debate on proposals to simplify rules for swapping information and intelligence between EU law enforcement authorities.

Fine Gael's justice spokesman Jim O'Keeffe said that the directive on exchanging information raised the issue of "member states not being prepared to give information unless they had a guarantee of confidentiality of that information or intelligence".

He asked: "What happens if a minister for justice is a serial leaker? What happens if a minister virtually automatically on receipt of information which he considers he can use for political or other purposes leaks it to somebody in the media? That is the situation in Ireland as far as I can see. This happened in the Frank Connolly case."

Mr O'Keeffe, who backed the directive, said it was already in practice between the Garda, the PSNI and police forces in Britain, as well as with Europol and Interpol. However, he was concerned with the leaks by Michael McDowell, who "under this framework is supposed to guarantee the confidentiality of information and intelligence" but "he appears to be incapable of doing so".

Sinn Féin's spokesman Aengus Ó Snodaigh said the debate was being handled in an "arse-about-face" approach. He pointed out that Frank McBrearty had been denied entry to the US because "he was still blackened by the Garda who had not corrected the record". The Minister "will also be able to destroy the careers of other EU citizens as he has done in the case of Frank Connolly".

Minister of State Tony Killeen, who introduced the motion, said it was a "relatively light measure". He said "the authorities in the State have proved themselves capable of dealing with confidential information, notwithstanding some of the difficulties that have emerged in the Morris tribunal".

The framework establishes a legal obligation to exchange information for criminal investigations and criminal intelligence operations and imposes deadlines from eight hours to 14 days.

The motion was passed.