Labour loses Willie but with so many balls in the air he’ll hardly notice

WELL, that was an unsavoury mini-drama — Eamon Gilmore losing control of his Willie.

The Tánaiste was thrown into travails by the petulant posturing of Willie Penrose who became the Cabinet’s first self-inflicted casualty, going AWOL after the barracks in his constituency was earmarked for closure.

Given Europe is on the brink of financial melt- down and we are about to face a €3.8 billion ram-raid horror budget, Penrose’s tipping point might seem a tad trivial.