Reaction: Frank McBrearty Jnr: Frank McBrearty jnr last night called on the Taoiseach to sack Minister for Justice Michael McDowell following the publication of the second Morris tribunal report which highlighted negligence and prejudice in the actions of some gardaí in Donegal.
The report found that gardaí tried to frame Mr McBrearty and his cousin, Mark McConnell, for the murder of Richie Barron, who died in a hit-and-run in 1996.
"I would call on the Taoiseach to sack the Minister for Justice because we have been telling him for nearly nine years, since he was attorney general of this country, that we are innocent people being framed for a crime that didn't even happen," said Mr McBrearty.
He said he would continue his policy of non-co-operation with the Morris tribunal and vowed to take legal action against the State.
"What I hear about the report, it doesn't go far enough and I don't need Justice Morris or anybody in the Department of Justice or anybody in the Garda Síochána to tell me and my family that we are innocent . . . The whole country knows we are innocent," he told RTÉ News.
"I'll campaign until the day I die and I will be taking this country, this Government, to the European Court of Human Rights because that's the only place that we will really get justice," he said.
"I will never go back to the Morris tribunal. Never. I'll take my fights to the courts of this land and then on to the European Court of Human Rights . . . I'm not only an Irish citizen any more, I am a European citizen. I'll tell the people of Europe and I'll tell the people of America what has been done to our family so that it can never happen to anybody else's family."
Mr McDowell said yesterday the McBreartys were "wholly innocent" of having had anything to do with Mr Barron's death.
He said the tribunal had found that some Donegal gardaí were "consumed by the notion that Mr Frank McBrearty jnr and Mr Mark McConnell were guilty when in fact there had been no murder, and the two men were completely innocent. Evidence to the contrary was rejected".
However, he refused to bow to the family's demands that they be guaranteed their legal costs before they return to the tribunal.
He said he had "explained to them a number of times" that this was not possible because of the independence of tribunals.
"I am not in a position to say in advance that I will pay the cost of the family because that would subvert the rights of the tribunal. I am not going down the road of saying to important witnesses that I will pay their costs, regardless of their evidence.
"The McBreartys are guaranteed their costs under the proceedings of the tribunal if they co-operate with the tribunals. What I am not prepared to do is take Mr Justice Morris's statutory role which is to decide on costs based on whether people did or did not co-operate with his tribunals."
The Minister rejected charges that the McBreartys had been discriminated against.