Moral force for good Nulty in squalid fall from grace

Even if he had not set himself up as some kind of moral force for good in the Dáil, Patrick Nulty’s fall was still as squalid as it was unexpected.

But the contradictions in his character were there from the start of his short but eventful Leinster House career.

Nulty was the only Labour TD actually elected on the much- criticised programme for government which the party negotiated with Fine Gael after the February 2011 general election.

Yet the community activist broke with the party just six weeks after winning a by-election in October of that year because he insisted he could not support budget measures which flowed away from the document on which he was elected.

Not that Nulty, 31, ever really made much secret of his distaste for the austerity alliance between the two parties which he and a minority of other left-wingers tried to block at a Labour conference that voted overwhelmingly to end 14 years of opposition and enter coalition following the general election.

Fine Gael used his record to paint its candidate at the by-election forced by the death of Brian Lenihan as the only real representative of government at a time when the Coalition had yet to fully lose its shine.

But Dublin West has a hardcore left vote and Nulty powered to victory.

Scarred by a fire which broke out in a relative’s house when he was a baby, which also did lasting damage to his voice, Nulty was a well-known councillor who had battled developer-led land rezoning and championed many other campaigns.

Though he repeatedly warned he would be a vocal backbencher, few expected him to exit Labour so rapidly. The manner of his departure caused considerable antipathy with the remaining rump of leftist TDs.

They objected to his seizure of the moral high grounds and complained that his walkout deprived them of cover on the left-wing flank of the party and forced a retreat by leader Eamon Gilmore back to austerity.

On the opposition benches, Nulty tried to form alliances with fellow Labour austerity refusniks such as Tommy Broughan and Roisin Shortall, but the weight of the executive freezes out independent voices and the Dáil machine prevented them from making an impact.

Nulty blamed abuse of alcohol for his highly inappropriate Facebook messages to a teenager in his resignation statement.

But the very fact that he referred to the recipient of his unpleasant emails as a “17-year-old woman” in that press release underscores the fact he does not fully realise the scale of his wrongdoing.