Crass comment puts Lilo Noel in the shade
Mr Dempsey has shot himself in the foot so many times in recent days his lower leg now resembles a Swiss cheese, but when the two veteran adversaries crossed swords at a probe into the Government’s dismal response to the Big Freeze it was Mr Broughan who was left red-faced.
To be sure, the three weeks of sub-zero temperatures Ireland has just emerged from caused a lot of hardship, and the decision of the Cabinet to disappear for most of the emergency was outrageous, but for Mr Broughan to suggest they behaved “something like the government of Haiti” was just a tad over the top.
Let’s do the casualty maths: Ireland – 10,000 fractures, Haiti – 200,000 dead. Mr Broughan had the good sense to immediately withdraw his remark, but it should never have been made in the first place.
Mr Dempsey had swanned into the Dáil Transport Committee with his tan fading, but his arrogance cleary undimmed as he proved that not only did he choose to lounge in the Med during the worst days of the crisis, but he has also decided to inhabit a alternative reality since his return.
Those expecting a hint of contrition from a transport minister who judged the height of a transport emergency to be the best time for him to jet off to Malta on holiday were sadly disappointed.
He graciously acknowledged that driving conditions had been “somewhat difficult” and “a small number” of buses did not run, but he wanted the committee to be constructive and “discuss what went right” in the emergency.
Well, the day before the peak of the crisis Mr Dempsey went right to the airport and got out of the country as fast as he could, and while “Lilo Noel” was drifting through the Med the country’s transport system went right to pieces.
And the fabled crisis plan went right out the window as no one bothered to call the emergency response committee until three weeks in, lack of salt left the nation’s roads like death sheets of ice and public transport in the capital collapsed.
But Mr Dempsey was having none of it. Why, Dublin Airport had been a marvel, he insisted – and he should know as he would not have been able to spend the height of the crisis in balmy Malta if the brave little air-hub hadn’t kept itself going.
Seemingly incapable of apology or explanation, Mr Dempsey has done himself few favours in recent weeks. As if leaving the scene of a transport emergency to hit the hotel pool in Malta wasn’t enough, he has covered himself in further infamy by moaning about being forced to come back early to the cold, deriding shivering members of the public who complained of him making a joke out of his absence when he didn’t realise the microphones were on, and effectively advocating the abolition of his post by stating it did not matter one jot if he was in the country for a crisis or not.
Mr Dempsey eloquently dismissed all the committee criticism as “hoo-ha” and “nonsense” as he accused the opposition of engaging in “stupid stunts to get headlines” while he was away. Presumably he was referring to the Fine Gael wheeze of parading a cardboard cut-out of him with the word “Lost” hung around his neck as Lilo Noel sunned himself in Malta while Ireland shivered through Arctic conditions.
“Where’s the cardboard cut out today?” Fianna Fáil loyalist Timmy Dooley jibbed at Fine Gael’s Shane McEntee, only for Mr McEntee to deliver the withering coup-de-grace of pointing at the real minister and sneering: “It’s over there.”
