Pressure is building on Minister for Justice Michael McDowell after he admitted today he had passed a Garda document to a national newspaper.
The document related to the executive director of the Centre for Public Inquiry (CPI), Mr Frank Connolly, who Mr McDowell says was involved in a plot to train Colombian rebels in the use of explosives.
Minister for Justice Michael McDowell
Mr McDowell used Dáil privilege to allege that Mr Connolly also travelled to Colombia in 2001 using a forged passport.
In the written reply to a question Dáil by Independent TD Finian McGrath last week, Mr McDowell claimed Mr Connolly travelled to the Farc-controlled region of Colombia on a false passport in April 2001, along with his brother, Niall, and a convicted IRA member, Pádraig Wilson.
Speaking on radio this lunchtime the Minister revealed he had given the Irish Independentdocuments he says prove that Mr Connolly had made a "bogus application" for a passport.
He maintained that his statement about Mr Connolly in the Dáil was "the unvarnished truth" and said the Official Secrets Act provided for a Minister to make official information available to the media in the public interest.
"I won't be brow-beaten into silence by people who are peddling what I regard to be a complete falsehood - and that is that unless material is proved beyond all reasonable doubt by admissible evidence in a court of law, that it cannot be the subject matter of any comment by a minister for justice " he told RTÉ's News at One.
"It was not a confidential document, it was a bogus fraudulent document," Mr McDowell said.
"It is not a concern of mine that the matter appeared in the Irish Independentbecause I supplied it to the Irish Independent. . . I provided that document to the Irish Independent."
"I did it for a particular reason and that was because on a previous RTE programme ... remarks had been made which suggested that there was no truth whatsoever in these questions that were being raised about Mr Connolly."
He said the information was not provided to "get at" the former journalist but acknowledged that his discussions earlier this year with the billionaire who funded the CPI, Chuck Feeney, had influenced the decision to withdraw the centre's funding.
The CPI was established earlier this year to inquire into matters it regarded as being of public importance and was exclusively funded by Mr Feeney's charity, Atlantic Philapthropies.
It has produced two reports including one on the controversial Corrib gas pipeline being built in Co Mayo by a Shell-led consortium.
Mr Connolly believes Mr McDowell has been co-ordinating attacks on him through the Irish Independentand said last week's claim in the Dáil was an attempt to undermine the CPI and was developed by "those seeking to protect vested interests".
Labour's Joe Costello accused Mr McDowell of "abusing his position" and said today's revelation justified his party's opposition to the Garda Bill passed in the Oireachtas in June.
The Garda were the object of the Minister's ire in 2003 when it was leaked that his son was attacked outside the family home in south Dublin. The garda posted at the house was dismissed soon after and Mr McDowell's wife, Prof Niamh Brennan, said she would not report an assault because it would appear in the press. The comments attracted much criticism.
The Garda Bill was being drawn up at the time and amendments were made to provide for prison sentences of up to five years for gardai found passing information or files to journalists or other parties.
In a further amendment, Mr McDowell accorded his position the power to demand Garda files and increased the threat of prosecution for journalists protecting confidential sources.
The Minister said at the time the amendments were not connected to his personal experience.
"What the Minister has done is unprecedented and extremely dangerous. He is straying into an area that no other Minister has ventured near before and leaves him open to the charge that he is behaving in a dictatorial manner rather than as an impartial legislator," Mr Costello said.
Joe Costello, Labour TD
Sinn Fein's Aengus Ó Snodaigh said Mr McDowell was using his position to "serve his own ends" and should resign.
"All passport applications are confidential. If one is 'bogus and fraudulent', as the Minister puts it, it does not mean that it is no longer confidential.
"The Minister has some questions to answer in this case. Where did he get this document? Did he receive it from the gardaí or did he pass it on to the Gardaí?
"By passing this confidential document on to the media, he has turned the justice system on its head. The minister's actions have proved that he is not fit to serve in the position of Minister for Justice and he should now resign," Mr Ó Snodaigh said.
Independent TD Finian McGrath had called for Mr McDowell's resignation before the RTE interview saying the allegations against Mr Connolly "breached fundamental principles of the DPP's office".
