Ireland has changed. There is less begrudgery these days.

The disapproval for his drink-driving has been far outweighed by the sneaking admiration for riding in a friend's helicopter and getting corporate box hospitality at Punchestown. There but for the grace of God etc.

Absolutely incredible

Surely McDaid's position is untenable

It will be interesting to hear Bertie's response to this act of criminality.

"It's prompted much talk about how Ireland lacks a culture of resignation with discgraced public representatives clinging to office in a most un-British fashion! Your thoughts?"

My thought is that "discgraced public representatives clinging to office" is now considered the British norm.

This issue has been discussed at length in British media for at least the last fifteen years.

Lord Carrington is often referred to as the last British minister ever to offer to fall on his sword, and that's about twenty-five years ago.

Unsurprisingly, RTE is a bit behind the times on all this

McDaid as a former Minister is not in office so how can he resign? He doesn't have a position to resign from.

Unless you mean resigning his seat for drunken driving which doesn't happened often anywhere in the Western world.

A call for his deselection as a candidate at the next Dail election would be more appropriate.

Personally I think he has been finished since he lost to Sean O Neachtain as FF's Euro candidate.

I was in Jim Mcdaids company for a while that evening in the Bar of the City West Hotel.He was that drunk he nearly cracked his head open trying to lean on the wall in the bar and then slipping and falling.

crow,

that's new information, you should call RTE. According to the man himself, he only drank some wine at the races. For five hours. Not that McDaid is the most reliable witness of course.
A lot of people are suppporting him on the grounds that alcoholism is an illness. Fair enough, but the problem was with his driving. Maybe he'd like to consider retiring for health reasons?

Not being from here me and my company did not know who he was.He just kept on pestering us and then offering to buy us drinks (we obliged) and talking about the horse racing and how he had come in a helicopter.He was flashing a lot of money about though.

Sounds like hypocrisy when you consider the fact that half the drivers on Irish roads after eight PM have drink in them.

Let's not forget George W. Bush was arrested for drunk driving before he went on to become Governor of Texas and eventually President of the United States.

McDaid is clearly unfit to hold public office. If convicted, he should have the grace to resign his seat.

Berties response

http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0429/mcdaidj.html