Byrne’s Brussels outburst exposes FF rift

IRELAND is being run by “mad people in Brussels”, Gay Byrne has claimed, in withering comments which expose a clear division with his potential backers for the presidency, Fianna Fáil.

Mr Byrne said the European project had been “a crazy notion from the beginning” but that Ireland had “crossed the Rubicon” when entering the single currency.

“I think there is no backing out now,” he said. “But it’s a mad, mad world and we are being run by mad people in Brussels.”