O’Dea’s defenders didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory either

DEFENDING Willie O’Dea on Monday, Justice Minister Dermot Ahern said: “I suppose Fine Gael are returning to type. They’ve always tried to get the dirt on people. I think it is despicable, to be honest.” Of course, he undoubtedly meant it is despicable to make false accusations.

But, wittingly or unwittingly, Fianna Fáil has been behaving as if being honest is despicable.

“The difference between us and them is that we never go on with that ‘holier than thou’ bullshit,” one Fianna Fáiler told Seán Duignan when he was Government Press Secretary in the 1990s. “You’ll never find us accusing them of being crooks and thieves, yet they keep throwing that stuff at us. To tell the truth when we’re faced with one of these blasted allegations, the first thing we whisper to one another is ‘did we do it?’ ”