The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Cllr Royston Brady, has apologised "unreservedly" to the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, for a scathing attack made on him in the media yesterday.
Mr Brady issued a public apology yesterday afternoon after criticising the Minister in newspaper reports for not responding to his request for a meeting to discuss street crime in Dublin.
In early July, Mr Brady wrote to the Department of Justice seeking a meeting with Mr McDowell. He received a two line acknowledgement of his request on July 30th which said "the matter is receiving attention in my Department".
Mr Brady said yesterday that he was "taken aback at the initial response" he received, since on previous occasions he had found Mr McDowell "friendly and easy to deal with".
However, in yesterday's newspaper interviews he said the correspondence showed "complete contempt for me and the whole of Dublin".
"The really annoying part is that the letter I wrote to him was on behalf of the people of Dublin so it is effectively two fingers up to them and me," he said in an interview with the Star newspaper.
The Mayor went on to criticise Mr McDowell's initiatives as Minister for Justice since he came into office last year, saying he was "hard pushed to find anything positive in them". The Minister's recent comments alleging journalists offered bribes to gardaí had also done "serious damage", according to Mr Brady.
The mayor's strong words of discontent with the Minister received widespread publicity in the media yesterday which may have prompted the public apology.
In the statement, he explained that the remarks made in the interviews "arose out of my frustration at trying to deal with concerns raised by my constituents and other citizens in the city about crime on our streets".
He had since been informed that there was "never any question of the Minister refusing to meet my as lord mayor". The reason for the delay in replying to his letter sent in July was "due to the fact that it was the main holiday period during August and the Minister and key staff were on leave".
Mr McDowell was in Portugal with his family from August 9th during the traditional political holiday period.
"If I caused the Minister any offence, I apologise unreservedly for any offending remarks I made in the interviews, which I accept now were not appropriate given the circumstances," said Mr Brady.
A spokesman for the Department of Justice declined to comment last night.