McDowell launches further broadside at Sinn Fein

Ireland's Justice Minister has launched yet another broadside at Sinn Fein

ahead of the forthcoming local government and European parliament elections in the Republic of Ireland.

In the interview given to a Sunday newspaper the Justice Minister said that Sinn Fein and the IRA should be compared with the Brown Shirts and the Nazis.

He said: "What I am worried about is that we shouldn't do what the people of Germany did in the 1930s when they elected to office people that liked o have it both ways. The Brown Shirts and the Nazis which were a threat to democracy."

The latest comments have further escalated the tension between the Irish government and Sinn Fein and they follow on from recent assertions by Mr McDowell that Sinn Fein was hypocritical in its stance on human rights in the Irish Parliament while republican paramilitaries continued to deal out summary beatings in the north.

Mr McDowell also repeated claims that republican paramilitaries were involved in organised crime in Dublin.

Sinn Fein MP for Mid-Ulster Martin McGuinness said that Mr McDowell should either "put up or shut up" in relation to the allegations made against his party.

Calling on Mr McDowell to substantiate the accusations made in newspaper interviews, he said that the comments by the Progressive Democrat Minister were driven by party political concerns with regard to the forthcoming elections in southern Ireland.

(SP)