Political poverty

GEORGE Lee’s decision to quit politics reminds me of another premature departure from Dáil Éireann.

John Murphy, elected as an independent member for Dublin South Central at the general election of March 1957, resigned his seat in May 1958.

Why? In the course of a Dáil debate on members’ expenses in December 1962, Deputy Frank Sherwin explained John Murphy’s predicament: “He had to resign because he could not afford to continue here. If he wanted to drink a pint, he had to hide in the hallway of the pub in case there was somebody he could not avoid and for whom he would have to buy a drink”.