Presidential candidate Ms Mary McAleese last night disputed the accuracy of a Department of Foreign Affairs document concerning comments she made about support for Sinn Fein.
In a sharp exchange of views with rival candidate Mr Derek Nally, she said he had never voted for Sinn Fein and had always opposed violence.
Mr Nally said that if Ms McAleese had not made comments attributed to her in a Department of Foreign Affairs memo, she should sue the official responsible.
The biggest dispute of the presidential campaign to date erupted when the candidates were asked on RTE television's Questions and Answers about a Sunday Business Post report containing details of the Department's document.
Ms McAleese said she did not recognise the comments she was supposed to have made to the Department official concerned.
Explaining the background to the two conversations involved, she said that after the breakdown of the first IRA ceasefire last year she had been asked to join the Redemptorist peace ministry being headed up by Fr Alex Reid.
The ministry had been involved in bringing about the first ceasefire, so she was honoured to be asked and agreed to help.
The work of those involved included meetings with members of Sinn Fein and the SDLP, with a view to finding the ground on which a new ceasefire could be established.
"I never met Sinn Fein on my own and I only met them in the context of that peace initiative." She had also "never ever" met the IRA.
Asked about a comment attributed to her that middle-class nationalists would be able to countenance voting for Sinn Fein, she said she had made some calls with a view to getting support for SDLP candidate Mr Eddie McGrady in the UK general election. To her surprise she was told by a lot of people that they would be voting for Sinn Fein or could countenance doing so, because it would bring them more into the political process.
She had relayed this to the official in the Department of Foreign Affairs, "but I never said they were my own voting intentions."
Mr Nally said the document had quoted Ms McAleese as saying she was "very pleased with Sinn Fein's performance in the (UK) general election" and confident that they would be able to perform better in the local elections.
She was also quoted as saying she was not interested in "running for politics" in the North unless there was a Sinn Fein-SDLP pact, he said.
Ms McAleese: "That is untrue."
Mr Nally: "Is the Foreign Affairs official telling lies?"
Ms McAleese said she remembered her two conversations with the official quite clearly. She had told her that they were working quite assiduously in the peace ministry to bring about the conditions for a ceasefire which, Mr John Hume had made clear, were the conditions required for a Sinn Fein-SDLP pact.
"I never at any stage discussed any ambitions to run . . . because certainly never at any stage have I ever countenanced running for election in Northern Ireland." It was "bizarre" that the document had come out of the Department of Foreign Affairs "at just this time . . .
"This particular official at no stage took notes, and let me be just be very clear about this, nor did she tell me that notes would be taken and made of the conversation."
She had never in her life taken the view that Sinn Fein was right not to condemn the deaths of gardai. "I do not believe that one single person should have shed one single drop of blood in this country for the things that they shed them for. I have always been strongly opposed to violence."
