Fergus Finlay: Simon Harris's swipe at the long-term unemployed was lazy, fatuous and cruel

There are many reasons people become unemployed and they're not lying on the couch smoking fags and waiting for the next payday in the dole office. And they don’t deserve lazy swipes for the sake of a round of applause

Fine Gael leader Simon Harris speaking at the party's ard fheis at University College Cork on Saturday.

How dare he, I thought. The cheek of him. We all know we’re as close to a full employment economy as it’s possible to be. So why does Simon Harris use an ard fheis speech to punch down at what must be a tiny group of people in the overall scheme of things?

I didn’t see the speech being delivered, so I downloaded it and read it carefully instead. Big mistake. That’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back.