Cowley condemns attack as ‘character assassination’

Last week was the second time in recent weeks that John Brennan indulges in character assassination. This time it is an attack on the Rossport Five and on me personally as a permanent associate of them. In early March in the WP, the heading of his letter “Cowley is twisting the truth” sought to give some sort of credence to a misinformed and political rant against me. It is obvious that the letter writer’s informant, coming from a certain political base, is happy to feed the same line of regurgitated politically motivated and unadulterated nonsense to his gullible recipient. John Brennan alleged that it was “certainly not conveyed to those public present” at the Ballina Shell-to-Sea demonstration that Pat Rabbitte was in favour of “Shell-to-Sea”. Indeed it was Mr. Brennan! And if you were there you would know that Mr. Tony Deffley conveyed that over the microphone for all present to hear.John Brennan blames hypocrisy as to “why there is so little respect for politics today”. Indeed if John Brennan had been at that Ballina demonstration he would have heard Fine Gael Cllr. Michelle Mulhern speak in favour of “Shell-to-Sea”, and yet vote against that option subsequently at the Mayo County Council meeting, unlike her party colleague Cllr. John O’Malley.No, Mr. Brennan – I have not gone away. Nor will I. As long as constituents of mine are being forced to live within the “kill-zone” of an unique high-pressure pipeline I will be there to defend them, no matter what, and for as long as it takes. You can be assured of that!Yours sincerely,Dr. Jerry Cowley, TD.Mulranny.