Taoiseach insults deputy and his native county

THE Taoiseach’s extraordinary personal attack on Deputy Joe Higgins in the Dáil recently had all the symptoms of midsummer madness.

However, his comment that Deputy Higgins was a nitwit who should have stayed in south Kerry was gratuitously insulting to the deputy and to Kerry people in general.

The Oxford Dictionary defines nitwit as “a person of low intelligence”. To say that this was an intemperate outburst is an understatement. Deputy Higgins is an outstanding public representative and has both intelligence and integrity. Furthermore, he is proficient in the Irish and English languages.