Amnesty International has said the Minister for Justice would be "small-minded and petulant" if his decision to deny it access to prisons to conduct research on racism was connected to a controversial advertising campaign it conducted more than a year ago.
In an ongoing public row about the rejected research proposal, Mr McDowell yesterday appeared to link his negative decision with Amnesty's anti-racism advertising campaign last year, which was critical of the Government.
Mr McDowell made an unprompted reference to the Amnesty advertisements yesterday while defending his decision to refuse permission for the prisons study.
On RTÉ radio's Marian Finucane Show, he said access to the prisons had been turned down as a similar study was being conducted by the National Training and Development Institute following a public tender.
"We don't propose to have two competing studies at the same time because we are trying to bring the prison staff along with the process, to get them to co-operate," he said.
When Ms Finucane attempted to move on to another subject, the Minister returned to the research issue, saying: "Amnesty also ran newspaper ads in which they put photographs of Bertie Ahern, Mary Harney and John O'Donoghue and claimed that they were racist." Mr O'Donoghue was the Minister of Justice at the time of the advertisements.
Ms Finucane asked the minister whether his decision was "personal". He rejected this, saying: "It's not in the slightest bit personal - but just because people stamp their feet it doesn't mean that I have to go down their road."
The Amnesty advertisements which ran in newspapers and on billboards in May 2001 carried photographs of the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the two ministers with the slogan: "Some say they're involved in racism. Others say they're doing nothing about it." The ads caused considerable consternation in government circles at the time.
Amnesty's Ireland director, Mr Seán Love, last night rebutted the Minister's charge that the advertisements had accused ministers of racism, saying they were merely criticising the government's lack of leadership on the issue. Mr Love said Mr McDowell, in his letter refusing them access to prisons for the racism study, did not refer to the advertisements as a reason for the negative response.
"If that is the case, I can't believe he would be so petulant and small-minded or that he would misuse his position in such a way . . . I do not doubt his integrity, although we have criticisms of his policy direction," said Mr Love.
The Minister last night in the Dáil staunchly defended his position against criticism from opposition politicians, saying he did not propose to be "brow-beaten" into changing it.