MP under fire after being caught out over brothel jibe

Opposition MPs vowed to force Ireland's Defence Minister from his post after he falsely claimed that a political rival ran a brothel, then denied making the accusation in a sworn affidavit.

Willie O'Dea, long one of Ireland's most verbally combative politicians, defended his actions in Parliament and insisted he had not lied under oath, but had merely given a mistaken account that he corrected.

"I took the initiative. I went to my solicitor and immediately corrected my affidavit. I was not forced or pressed to do this," O'Dea told MPs.

But the major Opposition Fine Gael Party and the smaller nationalist Sinn Fein - the original target of O'Dea's defamatory allegations - said the Defence Minister had lied under oath and lied again to Parliament. Both said they would force a no-confidence vote against O'Dea soon.

The O'Dea ethics scandal threatens to put further pressure on the fragile coalition Government of Prime Minister Brian Cowen, who has publicly backed O'Dea. Cowen has a razor-thin parliamentary majority that requires support from the small Green Party, which has made raising politicians' ethical standards a top priority.

O'Dea in March 2009 accused Sinn Fein politician Maurice Quinlivan of operating a brothel in an apartment he owned in O'Dea's power base of Limerick. Quinlivan sued for defamation, saying he didn't own the property and knew nothing about a brothel operating from it. Police had arrested three Brazilian prostitutes at the property - owned by Quinlivan's brother Nessan, a notorious IRA veteran. O'Dea provided a sworn affidavit denying he had made any of the comments, which helped him defeat Quinlivan's initial legal efforts.

He changed his story after a Limerick Chronicle reporter produced a recording of O'Dea saying precisely what he had denied saying.

"I suppose I'm going a bit too far when I say this, but I would like to ask Mr Quinlivan, is the brothel still closed?" O'Dea said on the recording. "There was a house owned by him that was rented out, and they found two ladies of the night operating in there in the last couple of weeks."

In December, O'Dea apologised in Dublin High Court and paid Quinlivan undisclosed damages.

In 2005, O'Dea apologised after playfully pointing a handgun at a press photographer.

Two years later O'Dea was accused of punching a man in the stomach in a Limerick pub brawl. The alleged victim was initially convicted of making false statements to police but was acquitted on appeal when surveillance camera footage appeared to capture O'Dea grabbing him by the throat.

- AP