O'Dea flips lid, accuses Greens of spraying house

national | anti-war / imperialism | news report Wednesday November 17, 2004 19:27 by news hound

Willie sez GP members did graffiti, then withdraws

O'Dea loses the plot in argument about Shannon and neutrality , makes wild allegations about green party members, claims to have Garda evidence, later withdraws his remarks.

In a heated argument in the Dail this evening, Green Party TD john Gormley seemed to get under the skin of Minister for Defence Willie.
Deputy Gormley accused the Minister of "talking rubbish" and helping this government destroy Irish neutrality.

Reports from the Dail indicate that as voices got raised, Willie got angrier and made an accusation the members of the Green Party had sprayed graffiti on his Limerick constituency office, and that Gormley had encouraged GP members to damage property.

Willie reportedly claimed to have Garda evidence to this effect, and offered to show it to Gormley.

Deputy Gormley said that this was fiction and forced O'Dea to withdraw all the remarks.

It is interesting to note that Minister O'Dea has not so far repeated the remarks outside of the Dail Chamber (where he would not be immune from charges of slander)

So the question remains:

-Was this Willie's imagination run riot in the heat of argument?
-Was it simply a stunt to smear the Greens which he would not need to back up seeing as it was done inside the protection of the Dail chamber?
-Is Willie paranoid to actually beleive that the Green Party are going around with spray cans leaving spidery messages (complete with very basic spelling mistakes) on his offices?
- Will the Minister repeat the allegations OUTSIDE the Dail?