Penalty points row - Dangerous game for Shatter

As the time-worn adage goes, people in glasshouses shouldn’t throw stones. If ever he doubted that truism, Justice Minister Alan Shatter has learned how dangerous a pastime stone-throwing can be.

If he hoped the political steam had dissipated from the penalty points controversy, he now knows it is not going to go away anytime soon. Following his politically damaging claim on Prime Time that Independent Wexford Deputy Mick Wallace was the beneficiary of garda discretion over not receiving penalty points for using a mobile phone in his car, the opposition campaign recently had all the signs of flogging a dead horse.

But they must have thought they had finally nailed their bête noir yesterday when Dáil Éireann was electrified as Independent TD Mattie McGrath put a volley of queries to Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore during Leader’s Questions.