Justice minister resigns - A decision that was long overdue

In a country where political resignation is more a state of mind rather than an occasionally used sometimes even an honourable bookend to a discredited political career these are indeed seismic, almost GUBU II weeks in political and public life.

One assessment suggests the dominoes started to topple when then Justice Minister Alan Shatter fired Garda Confidential Recipient Oliver Connolly, incredibly suggesting there was no longer a need for the office. Bizarrely, and contradictorily, he suggested that gardaí who wished to highlight wrongdoing should contact him. This is just one instance where his behaviour suggested an untenable disconnect.

The tumbling dominoes gathered pace when Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan was fired just over a month later. The last domino in this strand of a far deeper crisis fell to earth with a thud yesterday when Taoiseach Enda Kenny announced to the Dáil that Mr Shatter had resigned. Though there were already myriad occasions to justify such a decision the Guerin report, to be published tomorrow, into how the gardaí and the Government responded to, or more accurately, suppressed allegations of misconduct, apparently contains judgements so critical of Mr Shatter, his department and the gardaí that his position was no longer tenable.