Â鶹ԼÅÄ

A former Irish government minister has been criticised for saying people in border communities have violence "in their blood".

Former Fine Gael leader Alan Dukes made the comments in an RTÉ documentary about the businessman Sean Quinn.

A Fianna Fáil politician in a border constituency called on Mr Dukes to retract the claims.

Mr Dukes has since described the phrasing of the comments as "ill-chosen".

Speaking in the documentary Quinn Country, Mr Dukes said: "Border people have it in their blood.

"They are living in communities that have a long history of violence of different kinds.

"They will more easily turn to it than anybody else will.

"I’m not saying they’re different animals from the rest of us but, you know, whether they have provo links or B-Special links or whatever.

"It’s something that’s nearer to the way they think than it would be to somebody in south Tipperary or anywhere like that."

The term "provo" refers to the Provisional IRA while the B-Specials were part of the Ulster Special Constabulary - a reserve police force from the 1920s to 1970.

Brendan Smith, who represents the Cavan-Monaghan constituency in the Dáil (lower house of Irish parliament), said the comments were outrageous and ill-informed.

"What he said last night is the very definition of tarring everyone with the same brush," Mr Smith said.

"To say that border people turn to violence more easily than anyone else is an atrocious comment to make."

Mr Dukes served in various posts in the Irish government in the 1980s and 1990s.

Responding to the criticism, Mr Dukes said the remarks were not as "elegantly phrased as it might be".

“I am not saying by any means that the people in border counties are violent people. I am conscious of the fact that they have suffered from violence more than most other parts of the country," he told RTÉ Radio 1.

"I feel that if people have been offended by that, I just ask them to accept my statements that I don’t for a moment believe that people in the border areas are violent people," he said.

The documentary examines the rise and downfall of Sean Quinn, who at his peak was Ireland's richest man and employed 8,000 people in the Fermanagh and Cavan border area.

In 2011 he lost control of his business empire after he made a disastrous investment in Anglo Irish Bank following the collapse of the Irish economy.

In 2014 the businesses were bought by local businessmen backed by United States investment firms, who brought back former Quinn senior management to run them.

Mr Quinn later said he had been forced out and that his family had been "stabbed in the back" by their former company.

But he has repeatedly condemned attacks on property belonging to the owners of his former businesses.

In 2021 three men were found guilty of abducting and torturing Quinn Industrial Holdings director Kevin Lunney.