"I do not believe it is a resigning matter"

THE Minister for Justice said she would not resign. "I do not believe it is a resigning matter," Mrs Owen said, when replying to Opposition questions.

The Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, said that the Attorney General dealt with the courts' where it was quite obvious that something was wrong, he sat at the Cabinet table weekly, and he met the Minister, he was sure, daily. He was involved in the Northern talks, travelling regularly as part of the Government's delegation.

Yet, he added, the Attorney General had not raised the issue, never spoke about it. He decided on November 1st to raise the issued and it became a crisis on Wednesday night. Nobody in the Government or the Department of Justice had copped on to what was going on, nobody mentioned it in the office of the Attorney General, Mr Ahern said.

"How, Minister, could so many mistakes happen on one issue? Do you ever actually speak to the Attorney General? Does the Attorney General just communicate with letters?"

He asked how "in the name of God and common sense" anybody could believe what had happened. "It is in the land of unbelievable."

Mrs Owen said that the Attorney General did speak to her, very often. "I have said right from the very beginning this is a matter of great seriousness. And I am deeply concerned." She added that if the Tanaiste had used the word "embarrassed", she, too, would use it.

"It is a matter far greater than embarrassment for me that a decision of the Government was not transmitted to the relevant judge."

She said she did not know in detail what had happened, but she would get to the bottom of it.

Replying to Mr Michael McDowell (PD, Dublin South East) the Minister said that, on October 2nd, the Attorney General had written a letter, which was sent to the relevant section of her Department by her private office. "It should have been shown to me.a And it wasn't shown to me. I don't believe the fact that a letter wasn't shown to me is a matter to resign. I take my job much more seriously.

She said that the Attorney General had not sat on anything. "He rightly communicated to me that there was a question as to whether Judge Lynch had been informed."