LEAKED LETTERS:RESPONSIBILITY FOR the leak that led to Trevor Sargent's resignation lies with "the courts system or the legal profession or the gardaí", Minister of State Conor Lenihan said.
Mr Lenihan said he did not know exactly who had released the documents revealing Mr Sargent’s contact with gardaí about a case involving a constituent, but stressed he believed it could not have been a Fianna Fáil person.
“Obviously it’s somebody either in the courts system or the legal profession or the gardaí: that’s the only option that one could consider in this case.
“It certainly wasn’t Fianna Fáil or anybody connected to Fianna Fáil.”
Referring to Labour justice spokesman Pat Rabbitte’s description of the episode as a case of “the empire strikes back”, Mr Lenihan said Mr Rabbitte was very good at spinning conspiracy theories.
“He’s managed to launch this one about Fianna Fáil, but very clearly this is coming from either the courts system, the legal system or the Garda side of things,” Mr Lenihan said.
Speaking ahead of an event on the EU 2020 Strategy at the European Commission offices in Dublin, Mr Lenihan said it simply did not make sense to suggest Fianna Fáil was responsible for the leak.
“Nobody has the facts at this stage . . . but clearly Fianna Fáil are not involved in this kind of thing and we’re not out to damage or in any way undermine our own Government.”
Mr Lenihan insisted it would be rather foolish for his party to be involved in such a leak “because we prize the fact that we’re in a stable and hopefully sustainable Government with the Green Party right through to 2012”.
Asked for his assessment of the current state of the relationship between the Coalition partners, Mr Lenihan said it was quite good, though events of the last few days and weeks had added a degree of instability.
Meanwhile, Minister of State Billy Kelleher has called on Labour leader Eamon Gilmore and Mr Rabbitte to apologise “for attempting to smear the Government” in the wake of Mr Sargent’s resignation.
Mr Kelleher accused the pair of attempting to sow division with what he described as “malicious insinuations” which had no basis in fact.
“Without one iota of evidence to support them, Messrs Gilmore and Rabbitte tried to suggest that the Department of Justice and its Minister had questions to answer. It was dirty politics cloaked in sanctimony . . . They should now apologise,” Mr Kelleher said.
The Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin dismissed as “conspiracy theories” rumours about where responsibility for the leak might lie.
“There’s now theories that Fianna Fáil did it, the Greens did it, Fine Gael did it, Labour did it, the gardaí did it: we’ve great conspiracy theories, it makes [for] great radio,” she told Today with Pat Kenny on RTÉ Radio One.
