O'Dea, under fire for 'ill-judged' picture, says he did not intend to glamorise guns

Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea has said he did not mean to offend anyone by posing for a photograph with an automatic pistol in his hand pointed at the camera.

Opposition deputies strongly criticised the Minister yesterday over the photograph taken at a display by the Army Ranger Wing at the Curragh on Wednesday.

The photograph was published yesterday in The Irish Times and other newspapers.

In an interview with RTÉ yesterday Mr O'Dea said it would be wrong for anyone to think the picture indicated that he or the Government wished to glamorise gun crime. "I would regret it if people's sensibilities were affected, or if they were led to those conclusions. That is certainly not what I intended," he said.

Mr O'Dea said the pistol concerned was unloaded and he handled it under military supervision. Photographers had asked him to hold up the weapon when he had been examining it.

"All the weapons I handled yesterday were unloaded and rendered harmless. There's no question about that. I hope nobody is of the opinion that the gun was loaded in any way," he said.

Mr O'Dea said that if people were upset about the photograph he would not pose for such a picture again.

He was pictured with the pistol at a visit to the Curragh Camp in Kildare to mark the 25 anniversary of the establishment of the Army Ranger Wing - the elite special forces unit in the Defence Forces.

The Minister said he not only inspected weaponry but lots of other items of equipment as well.

"There was a lot of photographers around, they took literally dozens if not hundreds of photographs as I looked at various weapons and various pieces of equipment. On various occasions the photographers asked me to look up and hold it up here, you know, what usually happens. And this was the, out of all the photographs taken, this was the one they used."

Mr O'Dea posed for photographs beside a high-powered army vehicle and with a heavy machine gun.

Labour leader Pat Rabbitte told the Dáil yesterday that the photograph was "an ill-judged, tasteless stunt by a Minister mad on publicity".

Mr O'Dea responded that some day Mr Rabbitte would "drown in his own pomposity". "He seems to be permanently in awe at his own cleverness. Now he is permanently in awe of his own pomposity . . . I mean my message to Pat Rabbitte is quite simply, get a life," he said.

Billy Timmins, Fine Gael spokesman on defence, said Mr O'Dea's reaction to the controversy surrounding "his ill-advised action in posing for a photograph pointing a pistol at a cameraman is further evidence of his lack of judgment."

Mr O'Dea's attempts to blame everyone else for his own shortcomings was a clear indication that he did not realise the seriousness of his error, Mr Timmins said.

"His comments that he would await to see what the public's view of the incident is shows the Minister is incapable of making a decision on the incident on its own merits."