There is a certain validity to the arguments of Michael McDowell on the Frank Connolly affair.
As Minister for Justice, he is convinced that a highly influential individual is guilty of a criminal act, namely the obtaining of a false passport to travel to Colombia to acquire funding for the Provisional IRA, which may be used to undermine the security of the State.
While it seems that the evidence against Frank Connolly, chief executive of the Centre for Public Inquiry, is not sufficient to sustain a prosecution, we are told the gardaí are also convinced of his guilt.
What then is a Minister to do? He believes it is his duty as an officer of the State to place his confirmed belief into the public domain. It is difficult to argue with his view that it is in the public interest that people should know there are questions to be answered by the chief executive of a body itself set up to inquire into matters of public interest.
So how should the Minister proceed? He has at his disposal the use of Dáil privilege, which is precisely designed to allow for the airing of matters of vital public interest without fear of legal retribution.
Dáil privilege is an important element within our democracy, particularly given the highly restrictive nature of our libel laws, an area which the same Minister for Justice has courageously pledged to reform.
While there is the danger of abusing this privilege, Michael McDowell clearly believed the public interest overrode any such scruples.
If this was as far as matters went, it could be argued that any Minister would be justified in using Dáil privilege to expose matters of public interest, much in the way the media does (without privilege, of course) on a regular basis. The argument that the absence of a court conviction precludes him from comment is clearly untenable.
However, as far as the media is concerned, evidence is required to substantiate an allegation. What is most disquieting about this case is that the evidence, such as it is, was not laid before the Dáil by the Minister, but rather emerged as a leak provided to Sam Smyth, an Independent Newspapers journalist.
It did not go through the official channels of the Department of Justice press office. The document in question - the false passport application - was given to Sam Smyth personally by Michael McDowell. Furthermore, the passport-sized photograph accompanying the application was not supplied to Smyth, despite his request for it.
What he was given was a blown-up, A4-sized photocopy of the photograph, which he has described as a "grainy, hieroglyphic type of thing". You could make out the face, just about, Smyth told me, and it looked a bit like Frank Connolly, but he couldn't swear to that in court.
Connolly himself has stated categorically that the photograph attached to the passport application in question is not of him. He has also denied all of the other accusations against him, although he has refused to answer questions as to where he was on the dates that it is alleged he was in Colombia.
It seems to me that Michael McDowell's carefully constructed edifice of allegations against Frank Connolly crumbles in the face of an examination of his tactics. The somewhat sneaky leaking of a document to one particular journalist (even if the Minister admitted it later) is hardly the appropriate response of a guardian of the State in the face of a threat to national security.
Equally, it is peculiar, to say the least, that his elaboration to the Dáil of this threat was made, not of his own volition, but in response to a parliamentary question from Finian McGrath. Perhaps we would have heard nothing from the Minister about this dire and imminent threat to us all had that particular question not been asked.
Finally, there is another issue: the Centre for Public Inquiry was in the process of investigating the purchase sanctioned by the Minister of lands at Thornton Hall in north Dublin for a replacement prison for Mountjoy, according to sources within the centre. While Michael McDowell stated in the Dáil that he was not aware of this, sources within the centre state that an FOI application had already been made to his department for the release of all relevant documentation.
The Minister has reacted with an extraordinary degree of vitriol to criticism of his purchase of the Thornton land. When RTÉ's Prime Time forensically dissected the issue, Michael McDowell took the unprecedented step of writing individually to each member of the RTÉ Authority to express his extreme displeasure. He was told to forward the matter to the appropriate body for investigation - the Broadcasting Complaints Commission. To date, he has not done so.
Any Minister faced with a threat to the State clearly has a duty to act. However, Michael McDowell's actions here are tainted with a paucity of evidence, and secretive leaking of documents.
The security of the State deserves better.