IN a highly unusual move, the Attorney General's office has described as "sheer invention and entirely baseless" comments by the Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, which suggest the office received an explanation of what happened to the missing extradition warrant shortly after the collapse of the Anthony Duncan extradition case.
The Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, last night also issued a denial of Mr Ahern's assertion that her Department was informed within two days of the case collapsing that gardai accepted they had mislaid the documents. Mr Ahern appeared to be basing his comments on a Sunday newspaper story which had been specifically rejected by the Garda, she added.
Criticising the "wholly unsatisfactory official explanations by the Government over their mishandling" of the warrant, Mr Ahern had claimed that the reasons proffered were not believed by anyone, "not even themselves".
"Are we really to believe that the Government were unable to get any information from the gardai and/or Department of Justice officials for six weeks, when the explanation, at least in broad terms, was known to the gardai within two days and communicated to the AG's office and the Department of Justice?", Mr Ahern said.
However, taking grave exception to the implication of this claim, the Attorney General's office said last night there was "no element of truth" in what the Fianna Fail leader had stated. It was "totally at variance with the truth".
In his statement, Mr Ahern also said that, apart altogether from the fault by a garda in his handling of the warrant, the Chief State Solicitor's office had sent a representative into court "with a demonstrably incomplete document which could have been verified beforehand".
"Since the Attorney General is responsible for this office and the "Taoiseach (is responsible) for the Attorney General, the claim that, the AG's office was not any way at fault does not stand up."
A Government spokesman denied a further claim by Mrs that the collapse of the case caused "serious recriminations between the two governments in blaze of publicity". On the contrary, according to the spokesman, it led to no tensions between London and Dublin.
As recriminations over the circumstances surrounding the collapsed extradition case seem set, to continue into this week's Dail business, the Government spokesman also accused the Opposition of "trying to mount an entirely spurious and phoney debate" that included inventing new elements to the story.
He added that if questions arose that had not been already replied to, they would be answered. A parliamentary question for answer by the Taoiseach today has been ruled out but may be taken tomorrow instead.
The Opposition has indicated that it will continue to try to pressurise the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, to give further details of how the warrant went missing and why it took so long for gardai to furnish the Minister for Justice with an explanation.
Mr Ahern is insisting that the Minister was "kept in the dark" and said that if she was "really that little on top of her brief" there was no hope of the Government taking effective action against crime and drugs. Explanations given to date were formalistic, economical with the truth and lacked integrity, he said.
Meanwhile, the man at the centre of the extradition controversy,
Mr Anthony Duncan, is to appear in court on Friday. He is expected to be remanded on a charge of IRA membership.