Two of the most senior Fine Gael ministers in the Cosgrave government of the 1970s engaged in a furious behind-the-scenes row over a proposal to increase Garda number, according to newly released State files.
"A dog that is kicked is apt to bite and this dog has been kicked very severely," the minister for justice, Patrick Cooney, protested at one stage to the minister for finance, Richie Ryan.
The 1976/77 spat between the two Fine Gael heavyweights spilled over into the Cabinet room.
Mr Cooney wanted to boost Garda strength by 500 to deal with rising crime, the increasing threat from the IRA and the spill-over from violence in the North.
Five days before Christmas in 1976, the Department of Justice circulated a memorandum to government arguing for the extra gardaí. It emphasised the increasing demands on elite Garda units involved on cross-Border duty and in the "protection of persons and installations".
The Garda Commissioner wanted to set up a new task force to deal with "kidnapping and ransom demands, prison riots, armed robberies etc".
What infuriated Mr Ryan was an appendix to the memorandum containing comments from Mr Cooney about an earlier Department of Finance memo suggesting savings could be made in Garda expenditure.
It described the Finance memorandum as an "extraordinary document, both in tone and content".
"Its content is an amalgam of a lecture to the Department of Justice and a line of argument so tendentious as to be unworthy of a government department.
"The minister for justice is, virtually in so many words, reprimanded for announcing the government decision."
It accused the Department of Finance of launching a "strongly-worded attack" on their colleagues in Justice.
The Finance memo is criticised for saying that Garda strength had been increased by 1,942 since 1971 "without a satisfactory case having been established for any (underlined) of this increase.
"As to the content of the Finance memorandum, what is particularly objectionable (and possibly unprecedented in an official memorandum) is what might be described as a hit-and-run tactic with reference to calculations of central importance."
It accused Finance of untruths, meaningless questioning and adopting what sounded like a "suck it and see" approach.
Two days before Christmas Mr Ryan wrote personally to Mr Cooney saying he had read the "diatribe" appendix "which you dropped on the Cabinet table yesterday".
Mr Ryan said that "if the time wasted by authors, stenographers, typists and copiers had been put to proper use you might have been able to comply with Cabinet procedures.
"I suggest you ask your department to do so in future," Mr Ryan wrote.
"As the conscientious officers of both my departments have useful work to do, I have directed them not to dissipate their time and talents in replying to your department's logorrhoea. I will deal with it at Cabinet level."
Mr Ryan accused Mr Cooney of wanting the extra gardaí because an article in the Garda Review could cause him embarrassment.
"Small wonder public expenditure gets out of control when millions are spent on such flimsy grounds. A Happy Christmas to you," Mr Ryan's letter concluded.
On January 4th, Mr Cooney replied directly to Mr Ryan saying he understood that his letter - which he describes as containing "strong" language - had been circulated to other members of the government.
Mr Cooney said a memo from Finance the previous August was "highly offensive".
Dealing with the accusation that his appendix was a diatribe, Mr Cooney said he regarded it "first and foremost as a necessary demolition" of the arguments in the August memo.
"Diatribe is defined in my dictionary as 'bitter criticism'," Mr Cooney wrote, "All in all, I think that if there were a scale to measure bitterness of criticism, the memorandum of August 3rd would rank higher than the reply to it."
Mr Cooney apologised that Finance had not been alerted earlier about the Justice memo and appendix - "the lack of notice was neither planned nor desired".
Mr Cooney accepted there were hard-hitting sentences in his appendix but it was a necessary part of self-defence. "A dog that is kicked is apt to bite and this dog has been kicked very severely."
Mr Cooney hoped the air had been cleared and "I therefore am glad to acknowledge your good wishes for Christmas and to wish you in return an outstandingly prosperous New Year".
Ryan v Cooney: war of words
"Small wonder public expenditure gets out of control when millions are spent on such flimsy grounds. A Happy Christmas to you." - Then minister for finance Richie Ryan accused minister for justice Patrick Cooney of wanting extra gardaí because an article in the Garda Review could cause him embarrassment.
"A dog that is kicked is apt to bite and this dog has been kicked very severely" - Cooney to Ryan.
"If the time wasted by authors, stenographers, typists and copiers had been put to proper use you might have been able to comply with cabinet procedures.
"I suggest you ask your department to do so in future." - Ryan to Cooney
"Diatribe is defined in my dictionary as 'bitter criticism'.
"All in all, I think that if there were a scale to measure bitterness of criticism, the memorandum of August 3rd would rank higher than the reply to it." - Cooney to Ryan
