The Wretched State of Irish Politics and Irish Political Journalism

Ivor Callely has bitten the dust at last, and the vultures are circling the corpse. The Evening Herald, squalid rag that it is, reports on its front page this afternoon that Callely "begged" Bertie Ahern not to give him the heave-ho. Marie O'Halloran criticises his courage from the safety of the high-minded pages of the Irish Times. And that Old Lady herself editorialises that Ahern had no choice but to put a bullet behind Ivor's ear.

An Spailpín Fánach has a question: If Ivor Callely's head is worth IR£1,500, the value of the freebie he got from this painting contractor, how come no-one is calling for the head of the senior minister at the Department of Transport, Mr Martin Cullen, TD, who famously blew €52 million on voting machines that don't work? What about Jim McDaid, speeding the wrong way down the Naas dual carriageway in a drunken haze? Frank Dunlop is at the Mahon Tribunal names names, times, dates, places and amounts of bribes delivered so the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre could be built, and it's not even getting so much as a stifled yawn from the chattering classes? What in God's name is going on here?