Mick Clifford: Political abuse is rising — and Ireland risks losing the people democracy needs

From the financial crash to social media, declining deference has evolved into hostility that threatens to damage Ireland’s political life

On Wednesday, Michael Healy-Rae allegedly received a punch to his head when he was stopped in traffic, en route from the Dáil. 

On March 31, 2010, Eamon Gilmore accused Brian Cowen of “economic treason”. The exchange happened in the Dáil and was in relation to the decision in the bank guarantee two years previously to include Anglo Irish Bank. 

The implication of what the Labour Party leader was saying was that Cowen was more concerned with elites — many of them from outside the country — than doing his best for the Irish people.