For years Michael McDowell has been the darling of the media not because of favouritism but simply because he always manages to be "good copy", in the words of the trade, writes Mark Hennessy.
The reality is, however, that McDowell has a pretty low opinion of most journalists - even if he has rarely refused the opportunity when it has suited him to dominate print column inches, or on the airwaves.
His opinion has been further coloured by the "poor press" he received after it became known that €20,000 security gates were being erected outside his Ranelagh home at taxpayers' expense.
More importantly, and with more than a little justification, the Minister has been left with a distinctly jaundiced eye after an assault on his 14-year-old son was "splashed" in the Star just hours after it was reported.
In fact, Mr McDowell's son had initially been unwilling to go to the station because he believed that it would be "leaked" and he only did so after his father persuaded him that he should.
Therefore, the Minister's decision to include tough penalties for gardaí who speak out of turn in the heads of his Garda Síochána Bill will be interpreted, perhaps unfairly, as nothing more than political revenge.
In the eyes of Department of Justice officials, too many gardaí are far too free with information in their dealings with reporters, though it is not a picture that most reporters would recognise.
The reality is that the majority of contacts between the press and the Garda are utterly mundane. Most newsrooms do "the calls" periodically every day to check on happenings with local stations.
Usually, local gardaí are reasonably helpful on the details of day-to-day events, such as accidents, robberies, etc. Often, the publicity helps them in their own investigations.
Certainly, it does not threaten the security of the State. In any event, the public has the right - and it is a right, not a concession to be awarded by the powerful - to know what is going on in their local communities.
In the world according to some in Justice, this sort of daily communication would be funnelled up to the Garda Press Office in Dublin - which is nothing short of nonsense.
Reporters frequently struggle to prise information out of the very same same press office, which often does not have, or does not get, necessary information.
Clearly, however, there have been times when improper details have been released, and published when there is little or no public interest justification - particularly in a number of brutal rape cases.
In a number of murder cases, newspapers have published "detectives closing in on killer"-type stories, which have caused considerable grief to still-traumatised families.
Often, however, the stories were published because detectives wanted them to be published, because they wanted for very good reasons to rattle a key suspect.
Unfortunately, they have usually failed to tell the families first. The responsibility for so-called inappropriate "leaks", when they do happen, should not be laid at the door of rank-and-file gardaí. Instead, the responsibility lies much higher up the command chain.
Senior officers are not at all reluctant to use the press to their own advantage, particularly when they can put their own version of events into the public arena without any "fingerprints".
For instance, the press vividly remembers the infamous Urlingford incident in 1995, when 13 tonnes of cannabis stored in an articulated truck were paraded before the cameras. In reality, the haul had been picked up much earlier and it was only in Urlingford because detectives, who had driven the truck to the small Kilkenny town, were trying to capture bigger fish.
The operation went wrong, so senior officers portrayed it as a major "find". Journalists, who had no reason to doubt their word, took the story at face value, only to be made look very foolish later on.
The reality is that there are already strong rules in place to curb overly free communications with the press, both within the Garda's own disciplinary code and within the Official Secrets Act. Neither has been very much used. If unauthorised briefings are creating so many problems then it has to be asked why the existing rules have not been enforced more often.
When there have been internal inquiries about "leaks" they invariably are aimed at finding out the source, rather than discovering whether the allegations are correct.
Opposition politicians remember the treatment meted out to Labour's Brendan Howlin and Fine Gael's Jim Higgins when they demanded an inquiry into alleged Garda corruption in Donegal. Their campaign was aided by a Garda source.
Detectives, during some tense encounters, questioned both politicians, concentrating obsessively and exclusively on discovering his identity.
The new legislation will not include protection for any future Garda whistle-blowers since Justice argues that the Garda Inspectorate, rather than the press, should be told of possible wrongdoing.
Few expect, or want, the Garda to have "loose lips", though basic common sense can usually keep both gardaí and reporters out of trouble, while still ensuring that the public is as well informed as possible.
However justified, the new regulations from the Minister will be interpreted against the backdrop of the Government's shafting of the Freedom of Information Act.
Increasingly, the Government gives the impression that it wants both the press and the public to know their place, and to be quiet. And it is getting very, very tiresome.