Reynolds U-turn on Whelehan conflict

The former Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, yesterday executed a complete U-turn in his account of events leading to last November's fall of his Irish coalition, apologising to the former attorney general he had blamed for delays in the controversial e xtradition of paedophile priest Father Brendan Smyth.

Mr Reynolds told a Dail select committee investigating the affair that he had based his denunciation of the former attorney general, Harry Whelehan, on 16 November on a report by the incoming attorney general, Eoghan Fitzsimons. He had then told the DailMr Whelehan had been an unsuitable choice.

Mr Reynolds yesterday claimed it was now clear from civil servants' evidence that the Fitzsimons' account was "wholly unreliable" and "misleading."

Mr Reynolds maintained that the testimony of legal staff in the attorney general's office to the committee showed an earlier extradition, also involving charges of child abuse against a former monk, John Anthony Duggan, had not, as had been generally believed, undermined Mr Whelehan's explanation for the seven-month failure to extradite Smyth.

Mr Reynolds yesterday cited earlier evidence to the committee from senior civil servants in the attorney general's office which, he argued, showed the Duggan case had not, as Mr Fitzsimons argued, provided a clear test of new extradition legislation, in

particular a clause dealing with time lapses between alleged offences and prosecutions.