RESIGNATION AFTERMATH:FORMER MINISTER of state Trevor Sargent, of the Green Party, told reporters at Leinster House yesterday that he did not believe Fianna Fáil were to blame for his forced resignation from office this week.
The Dublin North TD denounced “conspiracy theories”, which he attributed to political scalp-hunting on the part of the Opposition, and dismissed suggestions of a Government rift as “fantasy and speculation”.
Asked for his views on the origin of the leaked correspondence with the Garda over an assault case in his constituency, Mr Sargent said: “I don’t know, but the level of conspiracy theories that are circulating has more to do with speculation than any evidence and I don’t want to be part of any conspiracy theory.
“All I could say is that it could be absolutely mundane and accidental as much as anything else, given that courtrooms are quite small places, generally, and given that they are generally quite full, between witnesses, members of the public, gardaí and, indeed, journalists.
“It is quite conceivable that a piece of correspondence could have been overlooked by somebody for whom it was not intended, I don’t know.”
He added: “We could speculate here till the cows come home and it will do nothing other than to just whip up people’s own machinations.”
Asked if he trusted his Government colleagues in Fianna Fáil at this stage, the Green Party TD replied: “Absolutely, I don’t think there’s any basis for the kind of rumours and speculation about Fianna Fáil revenge or anything else.
“That may suit a certain vague, chronological line of thinking but what happened to me is nothing to do with the events of last week, and I have to take it, based on my situation. I’m not relating it to anybody else’s situation.”
Asked if there had been an erosion of trust between the Coalition partners, he said: “I think it’s a level of fantasy and speculation driven obviously by an Opposition agenda, and I can understand that. I’ve been in opposition long enough. It seems to be a case of, ‘If you can take a scalp, why not take a Government scalp, and see how far you can go?’ I don’t buy it, though, as based on evidence. It’s simply conjecture.”
He rejected suggestions that his departure from office had destabilised the Government: “My swift resignation hopefully will send the message out that the focus of Government is not about Ministers’ personal trauma or angst or anything else, it’s actually about governing the country.”
Asked about the latest report in the Evening Heraldof a letter from himself dated February 15th to a Garda superintendent in Balbriggan asking him to "keep an eye" on the assault case involving his constituent Dominic McGowan, Mr Sargent said: "There's no great story here, to be quite honest, I feel, because the original letter which was brought to my attention in the media [on Tuesday] was sent to a garda, that garda gave it to a superintendent, the superintendent phoned me to say, 'If you need to contact the station about any matter, it's appropriate to go to the superintendent'.
“I took that as a very clear message that it was inappropriate to contact a garda and, most recently, the person who was attacked came to me, still in fear for their personal safety and, given they were going to have to appear in court with their assailant, they voiced that concern to me and asked is there any way that their safety can be at least be protected to some extent.
“I just wrote a short letter to the superintendent to say, ‘Please keep an eye out, this person is concerned for their personal safety’, and I got a short reply acknowledging that, and I don’t regard that as inappropriate or certainly not illegal.”
Asked why he had appeared to forget about the letter to the superintendent when he was making his statement to the Dáil on Tuesday evening, Mr Sargent said: “I didn’t forget about it, it was just not significant in the accusations that were levelled against me, which is why I resigned.
“The letter to a superintendent to say somebody feels in need of protection and is worried for their safety: any decent individual would want to help a person like that, I believe, in the most appropriate fashion, and the most appropriate fashion was simply to write to the superintendent who is in charge of the protection of citizens, to indicate that, and that’s all I did.”