DEPARTURE TIME

Dempsey is a seasoned politician with a well-oiled machine and his retiring from politics is another serious blow to FF, writes Political Correspondent Paul O’Brien

NOEL DEMPSEY said a curious thing earlier this month. “I don’t think politics is working as well as it should in the current circumstances,” he told Newstalk radio station.

It was the kind of statement you would expect from a new candidate seeking election and demanding political reform. It didn’t seem to occur to Mr Dempsey that he had been a minister for 13 years and that if politics wasn’t working as well as it should, it was partly his fault.