Another fine mess - It is time a few people resigned

SOMETIMES you’d wonder if we’d be better off if Darby O’Gill and the Little People were running the country.

In what was one of the most cringe-making climbdowns of modern times, Transport Minister Noel Dempsey, in a short few minutes yesterday, prevaricated and stumbled his way through a whole political career’s quota of “ifs and buts”, “maybes and wait and sees”.

His ordeal — and ours — came when he had to admit the Road Safety Authority’s proposals on constraining drivers using provisional licences would be applied with opt-out clauses on the scale of a Las Vegas pre-nuptial agreement.