Political gougers have turned Paddy’s Day abroad into a load of blarney

NOBODY seems to have asked what Brian Cowen was doing in Vietnam around St Patrick’s Day 2008.

Anyone ever heard of a Paddy’s Day parade in Vietnam? Wherever he was at the time, he could not remember the name of the place in the Dáil on Wednesday.

There has been considerable controversy during the week over Seán FitzPatrick’s telephone call to Cowen as Finance Minister during the share price crisis at Anglo Irish Bank in March 2008. Of course, like the bulk of the Government, he was out of the country for St Patrick’s Day.