Mr Higgins also said he stood over remarks he made this week supporting Mayo farmer Pádraig Nally’s decision to shoot John Ward (42) almost 10 years ago when he trespassed on his property.

Mr Higgins has also said that the amended legislation on protection of dwellings needed to be tested to ensure the property owner had “absolute powers”.

He told The Mayo Advertiser that “if that means doing what Pádraig Nally did, then so be it”.

Mr Nally’s actions at his home near Cross in south Mayo in October 2004 sparked off a long debate about protection of property, after he shot John Ward dead for trespassing on his land.

The 70-year-old farmer said he had acted in self-defence at all times.

Following a trial in Mayo in 2005, he was acquitted of murder but convicted of manslaughter and jailed for six years.

A retrial took place in Dublin in 2006, where he was acquitted of manslaughter after the Court of Criminal Appeal ruled that Mr Justice Paul Carney, the High Court judge in the original trial, erred in law by failing to allow the jury the opportunity to return a verdict of not guilty.

Mr Nally had served 11 months in jail when he was released.

Speaking to The Irish Times yesterday, Mr Higgins said he had been speaking in the context of the publication this week of journalist Cróna Esler’s book Unless by Invitation: Crimes that Shocked Ireland.

Mr Higgins said he believed the Mayo Travellers Support Group had “blown the issue up into a row between the settled community and Travellers” at the time of the shooting.

The Mayo Travellers Support Group did not respond to a request for comment yesterday.

Mr Ward was “a man with a considerable number of criminal convictions who just happened to be a Traveller, and this is not, nor ever was, an issue between the settled community and Travellers”, Mr Higgins said.

Mr Nally, who still lives at his farm in south Mayo, told RTÉ radio earlier this week that he still feared for his safety.

He said he had sympathy for the family of Mr Ward, but he had to protect his life and property. He had received some 10,000 cards from wellwishers when in prison.