TD demands Browne apology

A CORK Fianna Fáil TD has demanded a written and broadcast apology from journalist Vincent Browne for saying two towns in his constituency deserved to be flooded.

Mr Browne, in a newspaper column on the recent weather referred to the problems Newcastle West had faced before adding: “Fermoy and Mallow — the Sodom and Gomorrah of Co Cork — deserved to be flooded. But Newcastle West?

“Two prostitutes were brought to Broadford (eight miles from Newcastle West) one time and did their business in a horsebox conveniently provided by a local entrepreneur. One of the prostitutes came from Mallow, the other from Fermoy.”

Fianna Fáil TD Michael Ahern, in whose Cork East constituency the two towns lie, said he looked forward to hearing Mr Browne apologising.

“I think it is unbecoming of a journalist to be making such flippant and insulting comments,” he said. “Vincent Browne would appear to have let his imagination run away with him once again.”

The mayor of Fermoy, Cllr Tadhg O’Donovan, said Mr Browne’s comments were best treated with contempt.

His counterpart in Mallow, Cllr James Kennedy, said Mr Browne had been a distinguished journalist but he seemed to more interested in controversy in the way he acted on his television programme.

“I have been reading Browne for years and I think it was a throw-away comment,” he said. “It is typical of the kind of antics he has been getting up to for the last few years.

“The people of Mallow will not now take what he says seriously.”