Shatter was no poster boy for justice and department should be disbanded

I SAID last week that it’s amazing how events can overshadow an election campaign. Last weekend, of course, it was the arrest of Sinn Féin party leader, Gerry Adams. But this past weekend’s events make you wonder whether we are living in a democracy at all.

The resignation of Justice Minister Alan Shatter, and the deeply shocking Guerin Report that precipitated it, have made the local and European elections an irrelevancy.

Mind you, I had been struggling anyway to say something interesting about those elections. Elections that underpin transformation in local government in Ireland? Hardly.