The Green Party is to ask the Minister for Justice in the Dáil about a claim by the rugby player Trevor Brennan that a Garda squad car was used to bring him and a team mate from a pub to Dublin Airport at speed last Saturday after the Heineken Cup final.
The party chairman, Mr John Gormley, said yesterday that, if Trevor Brennan's account was accurate, the incident represented "a very serious misuse of Garda resources".
A rugby player had been facilitated with a Garda vehicle to use as "a private taxi service to the airport".
A Garda spokesman could not ascertain yesterday afternoon whether such an incident had taken place, saying the relevant senior officer in the area could not be contacted until today.
Brennan, an Irish rugby player with Toulouse who won last weekend's final, described the alleged incident in an article in this newspaper on Wednesday.
He said he and another player, David Gerard, had been given permission to skip the post-match meal and went to Kiely's pub in Donnybrook instead, where they spent a couple of hours.
"We were due back in the airport at 8 p.m. and I was worried we wouldn't make it, but a Garda pal made a squad car available for myself and David", he wrote.
"We must have been quite a sight to any passers-by.
"Two 6ft 4in guys in the back of a squad car breaking our hearts laughing as we made it out to the airport in record time."
Mr Gormley said that the Minister for Justice had claimed that Garda resources were scarce, and that he was clamping down on the drink culture.
"If this is the case then surely he would share my concern about this matter.
"I have now tabled a Dáil question to the Minister for Justice, and I welcome his response as soon as possible."