Minister accuses Gormley's 'friends'

There were heated exchanges when the Minister for Justice claimed a Green Party TD's "type of people" had vandalised the PD offices during the recent Dublin riots.

Michael McDowell was replying to questions on the riot from his Dublin South East constituency colleague, John Gormley. Mr Gormley asked the Minister why it was not possible to monitor the internet traffic showing there would be trouble in Dublin, if the gardaí had such resources at their disposal.

He added that he had seen the sites telling people not to go into town.

The Minister replied: "I am not acquainted with the websites that Deputy Gormley stares at in the early hours of the morning, but one of them, www.indymedia.ie, has in the past produced interesting footage. On this occasion, it produced footage from outside of the Progressive Democrats party offices being ransacked by a group of Deputy Gormley's type of people."

Mr Gormley said the remark was out of line, but Mr McDowell insisted that what he had seen made interesting viewing. "We downloaded it and sent it to the Garda for investigation."

Mr Gormley said the Minister could not abuse Dáil privilege by making serious allegations against him. "He is out of order. I would not condone any such behaviour and I ask him to withdraw his remark."

Mr McDowell insisted that "the anoraked group which descended on my party's offices would be the deputy's".

Labour spokesman Joe Costello said: "The Minister is confusing Deputy Gormley's supporters with the Taoiseach's followers."

Mr Gormley said that the Minister's comments were outrageous. "He has abused Dáil privilege in the past to engage in this kind of slur." He accused the Minister of regularly abusing Dáil privilege and having nothing but contempt for the House.

Fine Gael spokesman Jim O'Keeffe advised Mr Gormley not to take the Minister seriously. "His behaviour is par for the course." Mr McDowell remarked: "There was muesli in the air and open-toed sandals on the street."

Earlier, the Minister said that, contrary to what had been published in the newspapers, the number of gardaí deployed for President George W Bush's visits to Shannon was smaller than the number initially deployed to police the Love Ulster rally.

Pressed on the issue by Mr Gormley, the Minister said: "If 500 of his [ Mr Gormley's] friends had turned up, he would be the first to say if there had been an incident, that I was unprepared for it."