MINISTER FOR Defence Willie O’Dea has said he has “no problem” with making a statement to the Dáil if Taoiseach Brian Cowen asks him to do so, in relation to a court case about false and defamatory statements he made in a newspaper article last year.
Mr O’Dea said he would be talking to Mr Cowen and if he asked him to make a statement, “I have no difficulty with that. I have nothing to hide.” He has denied perjury in the case and said that: “I apologised. I put my hands up. I made a mistake.”
The Minister was commenting as Fine Gael justice spokesman Charlie Flanagan said he would raise the matter in the Dáil tomorrow. He said: “I’d like the Taoiseach to instruct the Minister to come into the House and make a statement. These are matters of serious public concern and the Dáil deserves an explanation.”
He wanted to know if Mr Cowen was satisfied that the Minister was compliant with the Cabinet handbook code of conduct. Mr Flanagan said there was a “very high duty of care for office holders. It’s a matter of the highest ethical standards.”
Fine Gael Seanad spokesman on justice Eugene Regan had earlier this month raised the case in the Seanad and demanded to know if the Minister had been held to account by the Taoiseach
Mr Regan accused Mr O’Dea of lying under oath in a High Court case. He claimed “we have become used to Ministers lying, but lying on oath is a new low” and he questioned the Minister’s fitness for office.
Mr O’Dea, he said “categorically and emphatically denied that he had made an allegation about ownership of a brothel in Limerick by a candidate in the local elections. That is why Mr Justice Cooke did not grant an injunction in the case – the court had been misled. When the journalist’s tape of the interview was produced, the Minister admitted he had made a false statement and apologised to the court. However, he only did so when he had been found out.”
Mr O’Dea has repeatedly rejected the claims. He said yesterday that as soon as he realised he made the statement, “I went to my solicitor. I apologised. I put my hands up. I made a mistake.”
Mr O'Dea apologised to Sinn Féin councillor Maurice Quinlivan for making the false and defamatory statements, in an interview with a journalist from the Limerick Chronicleon March 10th.
Following the defamation proceedings, Mr O’Dea apologised in a statement to the court for making the statements and for denying having made them during High Court injunction proceedings brought by Cllr Quinlivan.
