The former PD deputy, Mr Michael McDowell, has strongly rejected the Tanaiste's criticisms of his remarks about the unsuitability of the referendum on Cabinet confidentiality.
He was responding to Ms Mary Harney's statement yesterday that his remarks, in an article opposing the referendum, were "absurd", "personally abusive and sexist".
Mr McDowell claimed that Ms Harney was remarkably confident to describe as "absurd" the contents of virtually an entire chapter of Kelly's authoritative work on the Irish Constitution. He also rejected her assertion that the overall tenor of his remarks were "sexist".
In the Irish Independent on Wednesday, Mr McDowell had stated that the amendment was "the predictable consequence of running the country out of the hip pocket and handbag of coalition leaders, without consultation or reflection".
Ms Harney, in reaction, said Mr McDowell was a very eminent senior counsel. He made many arguments on these issues. "We shouldn't engage in either personal abuse or sexist language. That is not helpful."
Asked if Mr McDowell had done that, Ms Harney stated: "I believe that the comments were, of course. They are. The comments I see in today's Independent are certainly personally abusive and they are sexist. And I think that takes away from the quality of the argument. I am determined that no outside forces will destabilise this Government. ail on June 26th".
The Tanaiste had stated earlier that people like Mr McDowell and Mr Des O'Malley were both lawyers with very strong views on this. Mr McDowell never favoured a constitutional referendum on Cabinet confidentiality, she continued. He felt it should be dealt with by statute with the legislation referred to the Supreme Court. He always thought a different Supreme Court would reverse the previous Supreme Court decision.
Both the Attorney General, Mr David Byrne, and his predecessor had advised very strongly that this was not necessarily the case.
The Tanaiste said this was a very important referendum. She believed they could only change Cabinet confidentiality very cautiously. They did not want discussions at Cabinet to get into the public domain.
They wanted to ensure, she said, that Government decisions, minutes of Government meetings and Government memoranda could get into the public domain and could be given to tribunals of inquiry, for example. Clearly this referendum, coming in advance of the Moriarty and planning tribunals, might be very helpful to those tribunals.
Advocating that the amendment was a "half-way house", Ms Harney said this Government decided to proceed with the last government's Bill. It had the widest consensus among all the political parties.
