O’Donoghue a victim of his own tactics

TRUE to form, John O’Donoghue’s resignation speech was petulant, bitter and deeply ungracious. There was no apology for any extravagance or excess on his part, no acknowledgement of the deep anger of the public at his behaviour. This was of no great surprise.

What did surprise me, however, was the amount of self-pity in his speech. O’Donoghue protested that he “was not afforded the basic principles of a fair hearing. Instead, the soundbite took the place of fairness”.

He continued that members of the Dáil should “accord to each other a minimum quantum of fairness and reasonableness” rather than “surf the political wave of competitive outrage”.