The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, said yesterday that he had been asked at a public meeting to seek Garda crime figures for the Nutley area of Donnybrook, south Dublin.
Mr McDowell yesterday repeated his rejection of the claim by Fine Gael that he had abused his position by securing figures from the Garda that the force would not release to Fine Gael.
The Minister said he had no knowledge of why or in what circumstances the Fine Gael justice spokesman, Mr Jim O'Keeffe, sought the same information on April 21st. This followed the Minister's request for information on February 13th.
Documents Fine Gael released on Monday showed that the Garda in Donnybrook was "unable to answer" all the questions Mr O'Keeffe had asked about crime levels in the area.
According to Fine Gael, Mr O'Keeffe sought the information from the Garda at Donnybrook after its local election candidate, Ms Lucinda Creighton, was unable to source the information from the station.
Fine Gael said Mr O'Keeffe wanted to follow the same procedure as Mr McDowell. It said this was the reason why Mr O'Keeffe did not seek the information from the Department of Justice.
Mr McDowell said other constituency TDs and councillors had been present at the a.g.m. of the Nutley Residents' Association on February 12th.
The association chairman had asked him in public at that meeting whether he would be able to obtain Garda crime figures for the area.
He agreed to seek the information after the chairman indicated that the community garda, who was usually in a position to outline crime levels, was unable to attend the a.g.m. because she was on maternity leave.
Once the Minister received the information, he asked the local PD area representative, Ms Wendy Hederman, a local election candidate, to ensure that every resident in the area was given the information.
He said that none of the other elected representatives or candidates who attended the meeting had asked him to convey the information to them.
Mr McDowell said he would have been happy to do so if they had. He also said that none of the other politicians at the meeting had sought the information from his Department.
Mr McDowell said a news report about Fine Gael's claims in The Irish Times yesterday was unfair because it did not give the "full facts" of the circumstances in which he sought the information.
He said there was no question of any departure from accepted political standards, and the entire "transaction" with the Garda was conducted from his constituency office and did not involve his Department.
He said he wrote in his correspondence with the Garda in Donnybrook that he had been been asked by the residents' association to supply crime figures and general information "which would have been available had the community garda not been on maternity leave".
