TDs should be careful to use parliamentary privilege sparingly

BACK in March of last year, I got a series of calls from a man in north Cork. 

At the time, I was snowed under, and the caller left voice messages. The gist of his calls was there was serious garda malpractice going on in the town where he lived. It concerned one officer in particular, who was “running amok”. Despite the import of such a call, I didn’t get a chance to respond immediately, and it was only a few weeks after the first call that I was in a position to answer.

He was relieved at finally collaring me over the “corruption”. Okay so, says he, get a load of this. The local guard, a man who was cock o’ the walk, has been driving around for the last three months with no motor tax on his vehicle. That wasn’t all…