Watchdogs may have last laugh on Shatter depending on their bite

The penalty points scandal saw Alan Shatter be so slippery he was able to obscure its real point in an attempt to avoid penalty himself.

The spectacular back-blast from Mr Shatter’s drive-by attempt at character assassination may have left his expansive ego a bit bruised, and forcing a feeble not quite “sorry” from his lips, but on he sails as minister responsible for the gardaí, legal system, and defence forces, seemingly without a bother.

Luckily for Mr Shatter, the Dáil lacks three things: a political class with standards; an opposition with bite; and a junior Coalition party with a moral compass — as even one of the above could have done for him.

Mr Shatter was also fortunate in his choice of enemy, in Mick Wallace, as the Independent Wexford TD’s character is already in tatters since it was revealed he cheated the tax system out of Vat, owing the rest of us some €2.1m in unpaid dues and fines.

Taking on the judges and the rank- and-file gardaí shows Mr Shatter is no political coward, so it was especially beneficial his biggest slip-up so far occurred when dealing with such a tarnished TD, rather than a put upon group with the ability to punch back hard.

By making it all about personality, and willfully distorting Wallace’s position on penalty points — the Independent TD was not against casual roadside waivers such as the one he enjoyed, but concerned about the scope for corruption in the quashing of penalties after they had been processed — Mr Shatter was able to distract attention away from his own blatant abuse of power.

Fellow anti-penalty points waiver campaigner Clare Daly was right to describe Mr Shatter’s Dáil performance as a “cabaret act” because he has been hamming it up in his own one-man show at the Theatre of the Absurd since the storm broke.

Ludicrous excuses about it being his “duty” to make the matter public lest he be accused of a “cover-up” have left Mr Shatter looking somewhat shoddy, as the reality is that he deliberately used confidential information provided to him by a willing Garda Commissioner in order to smear a political opponent he found to be an irritant.

It has also been a pretty pathetic saga for Labour, especially since the party’s ruling executive board belatedly decided just last weekend that as the Coalition’s silent side-kick, it needed to try and carve out a more assertive public image for itself in Government.

But all we saw was a lone backbencher putting his head above the parapet and a couple of junior ministers mouthing banalities of concern. And even this minor attempt at demanding explanations probably had more to do with the long-standing tension between the Justice Minister and the Tánaiste over what Eamon Gilmore sees as Mr Shatter’s meddling in his frosty foreign policy approach to Israel, rather than an outbreak of muted morality in Labour.

While a weak and divided opposition provided little more than a blunderbuss for the Justice Minister to dodge, Mr Shatter still stands staring down the double barrel of two outside inquiries into his behaviour.

The Standards in Public Office watchdog investigators are sniffing around, and robust Data Protection Commissioner Billy Hawkes has made it very clear he treats breaches of trust such as the one committed by the Minister for InJustice with the utmost seriousness.

Slippery Mr Shatter could yet slide face first if the findings are damning enough.