The Office of the Attorney General is not above politics, the Attorney General, Mr Michael McDowell, said yesterday. Mr McDowell was speaking following criticism of comments he made about Sinn Féin in a speech at his selection as a Progressive Democrats general-election candidate last week. "The notion that the Attorney General is above politics is completely wrong," said Mr McDowell in an interview with Eamonn Dunphy on Today FM yesterday. "It is so anti-historical, anti the facts, I can't believe
Mr McDowell made his remarks following the revelation that an official from the Attorney General's office had made a telephone call yesterday seeking to buy a transcript of an interview given by Sinn Féin president, Mr Gerry Adams, on RTÉ's This Week on Sunday. A caller to RTÉ's Liveline said she had received a call in error from the official seeking the transcript. Fine Gael front bench spokesman Mr Charles Flanagan said he was concerned at what was happening in the office of the Attorney General.
"I believe that Mr Michael McDowell is politicising that office, establishing a very dangerous precedent, using the office of Attorney General as a platform to advance his political career and to improve the flagging profile of his party, the PDs," he said.
Mr Flanagan said Mr McDowell was running the risk of bringing the office of the Attorney General into "some disrepute."
The Fine Gael TD said that on the face of it there was nothing wrong with the Attorney General's office seeking to buy a transcript of Mr Adams's interview "but it has to be taken in the context of a bit of a to do over the past 48 hours between Mr Adams and Mr McDowell, where Mr McDowell at his party convention had a fierce lash, in a most intemperate way, at Sinn Féin. Mr Adams responded and Mr McDowell is presumably preparing a further response."