Gay Byrne has the guts and the confidence to do a good job

MARTIN CULLEN has an unenviable record of fouling up more spectacularly than any of his colleagues and most of his predecessors. They used to call Charlie Haughey the great survivor, but at least he did have some achievements.

Cullen has been surviving on a trail of disasters.

Some politicians and media pundits think there is no such thing as bad publicity, but if they bothered to look they would find that there has been no shortage of wrecked political careers. This week, Cullen pulled off a real coup in persuading Gay Byrne to take on the role of chairman of the new Road Safety Authority.