Minister’s smear tactics designed to take spotlight off coalition’s failures

ARTS, Sport and Tourism Minister John O’Donoghue praises Fine Gael for their consistency (Irish Examiner letters, November 23).

He deserves similar praise, for even with age he has not lost his ability consistently to tell porkies about his opponents in order to defend his own Government’s tawdry record.

Laughably, he claims FG have proposed the legalisation of small brothels. The party has proposed no such thing.

Mr O’Donoghue seems to have fallen for this fiction, which was originally cooked up by his colleague Denis O’Donovan TD in an attempt at cheap publicity in the Fine Gael-dominated constituency of Cork South West.

The reality is that FG have proposed a significant clampdown on the sex industry. Their justice spokesman, Jim O’Keeffe TD, has called for measures against those who pick up prostitutes and prey on vulnerable young women, while Simon Coveney MEP has been to the fore in the European Parliament’s attempts to make business travellers a part of the solution to the increasing phenomenon of sex trafficking for prostitution.

Mr O’Donoghue has chosen to ignore these efforts and instead adopt the cheap smears dreamt up by his Fianna Fáil colleague.

The minister also criticises FG’s plans to set up ‘wet rooms’ in A&E departments. Does he not realise that the plan commands significant support within his own party? On RTÉ’s Questions and Answers last May, his cabinet colleague, Brian Cowen, explicitly refused to criticise the plan. Mr Cowen must know a good idea when he hears one. Mr O’Donoghue also criticises FG for “the fiscally irresponsible policies of compensating taxi drivers” at the last election. If this policy was so irresponsible, why did the Government of which he is a member implement the policy almost immediately after returning to office?

Mr O’Donoghue will not remember with fondness his time as Director of European Elections in the Ireland South constituency in 2004. So when he tells us “it was once believed dinosaurs would always be there because dinosaurs were always there — that theory proved to be false”, we can take it he knows what he is talking about. Just ask Gerry Collins! Perhaps if Mr O’Donoghue stops telling lies about Fine Gael, then Fine Gael might stop telling the truth about him.

Barry Walsh

Brookfield Hall

Castletroy

Co Limerick