O'Dea in Dail battle over 'lie'

watchingthepols

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article7026436.ece




From The Sunday Times
February 14, 2010
O’Dea in Dail battle over High Court evidence
Justine McCarthy

Willie O'Dea Defence Minister
Fine Gael will force Brian Cowen to defend Willie O’Dea in the Dail this week after the defence minister was accused of giving false evidence on oath in a High Court libel case.

The matter has already been raised in the Seanad by Eugene Regan, Fine Gael’s spokesman on justice in the upper house, who accused O’Dea of committing perjury, questioned the minister’s fitness for office and suggested he resign. “We have been used to ministers lying, but ministers lying on oath is a new low,” said Regan.

The Fine Gael senator cited the cases of two British politicians who were jailed for perjury and perverting the course of justice. Jeffrey Archer, the former Conservative party chairman, got a four-year sentence in 2001 for lying in a 1987 libel case he took against the Daily Star for alleging he slept with a prostitute. In 1999, Jonathan Aitken, a former minister, was jailed for 18 months after being caught lying in court in a case against The Guardian.

Charlie Flanagan, Fine Gael’s justice spokesman in the Dail, intends asking the taoiseach during question time on Tuesday if he is satisfied O’Dea is compliant with the code of conduct in the cabinet handbook.

“His behaviour does not seem to accord very well with either the letter or the spirit of the Standards in Public Office Commission’s requirements for ministers, and an explanation is required,” Flanagan said yesterday.

O’Dea swore an affidavit on April 14, 2009 denying that during an interview with the Limerick Leader newspaper the previous month he had accused Maurice Quinlivan, a Sinn Fein candidate in the local elections, of being involved in a brothel. In his affidavit, O’Dea “categorically and emphatically” denied he had claimed Quinlivan was a part-owner of a property in which a brothel had operated.

“I say that, as a life-long committed democrat charged with the responsibility of upholding our system of democracy, I do not engage and never have engaged in deliberate, callous or continuing attempts to slander any politician,” O’Dea stated after the newspaper published a clarification distancing itself from his comments.

O’Dea was required to swear an affidavit in response to an application by Quinlivan for an injunction prohibiting him from repeating the allegation. The injunction was refused.

But O’Dea had a change of heart after the journalist’s recording of the interview was produced. This revealed that it was the minister who introduced the topic of a brothel. “I suppose I’m going a bit too far when I say this but I’d like to ask Mr Quinlivan is the brothel still closed?” O’Dea had said.

Mike Dwane, the journalist, asked him to explain. O’Dea replied: “Do you know the brothel they found in his name and in his brother’s name down in Clancy Strand?” Dwane said he had never heard about it. O’Dea replied: “Did you not hear that? You better check with your sources. There was a house owned by him that was rented out and they found two ladies of the night operating in there in the last couple of weeks.”

In a statement read to the High Court four days before Christmas, O’Dea accepted he made the comments to Dwane. He acknowledged “the implications and statements were false and defamatory of councillor Quinlivan”. He withdrew them “in their entirety” and apologised to Quinlivan, a brother of the Brixton prison escapee Nessan. He also paid damages.

O’Dea’s statement pointed out that Maurice Quinlivan accepted the minister had not intended to mislead the court in making the affidavit, and there was no suggestion he had acted other than innocently in denying he had made the original comments. Under the Statutory Declarations Act 1938 it is a criminal offence to knowingly make a false sworn statement. It is punishable by a IR£50 (€63.40) fine and/or up to three months’ imprisonment. Convictions for perjury are rare in Irish courts.

O’Dea denies perjury and says he made an honest mistake. He has sent a solicitor’s letter to The Sunday Times seeking an apology, damages and legal costs in response to an opinion column about his affidavit in last week’s edition.

A government spokesman said the issue between O’Dea and Quinlivan was “a personal matter” and “the court had no issue with it”.

Biggins

I guess between that and the other paper write-up mentioned HERE, its not a good day for him.