AFTER he broke his neck falling down the stairs at home 20 years ago, doctors feared Tony Hassett would never walk again. But the 59-year-old Nenagh-based sports coach defied medical opinion and is not only walking but is also a basketball coach.

ASK Michael Lowry if he resents being regarded by some in the “commentariat” as a parish-pump politician, a guy to whom you’d go to fix a pot-hole rather than fix the economy, and he bristles.