Jim McDaid,

peasant

the former junior minister for transport, has, as you've probably heard, got himself arrested while driving home drunk from Punchestown on the wrong side of the M7 motorway.

So far, so bad ...

Minister of state Tom Kitt said in an interview on "the last word" when questioned about this: "I feel sorry for him and his family"

What the f***??

Feel sorry for him ???

sorry he got caught, or what ...

Victor

peasant wrote:

the former junior minister for transport, has, as you've probably heard, got himself arrested while driving home drunk from Punchestown on the wrong side of the M7 motorway.

Was he punch drunk? :rolleyes:

Minister of state Tom Kitt said in an interview on "the last word" when questioned about this: "I feel sorry for him and his family"

The family has had problems, most of them attributable to McDaid himself (at the time he said "people who commit suicide are selfish", his marriage was breaking up and his wife was suicidal).

Seth Brundle

AAaawww - the poor fella is having problems, so everyone leave him alone!
Feck him!
He was obviously so plastered that he managed to go down a motorway in the wrong direction. Tom Kitt may nearly have been expressing soprrow for the coachload of people killed or the 10 car pile up or whatever had McDaid continued uninterrupted.
As a TD he is in a position of responsibility which is strengthened by the fact that he was previously Jnr Minister for Transport and as mentioned on the Last Word this evening, came out with a speech a few years ago on the effects of DUI

camarobill

the only thing that c..t is sorry for,is getting caught,red card i think fast enuf running his mouth off about drink drivers,and him doing the same,why has he not been sacked yet :eek: brown envelopes and back handers at the raceing i think. :cool:

Victor

camarobill wrote:

why has he not been sacked yet

Because he was fired last year. They can't fire him from a job he doesn't have.

BrianD

Was it this year or last year? Didn't hear the full story. Will be interesting to see what the charges and punishment will be.

causal

[cynical]
He'll get off on some technicality :rolleyes:

FF will probably set up an enquiry - that way they can't answer questions about it because it may prejudice the outcome of the enquiry :rolleyes:
[/cynical]

His family situation is unfortunate, but by f**k it's no excuse for what he chose to do.

causal

Bamboozled

kbannon wrote:

AAaawww - the poor fella is having problems........

Its called life - a lot of others can do it without drink-driving... hey most can even call a taxi.

He's an idiot and should be benned from both drink and from driving for life! :eek:

green-blood

SACK him - from the DAIL, the plank, he's doing us all for 100K plus a year. This type of SERIOUS crime should result in immediate resignation of a dail seat... pathetic, he'll lose his licence for a year and then put in a Dail expense claim for a chaufer.

MrPudding

I was a bit annoyed with the coverage of this on Newstalk yesterday evening. They kept say that "even though he has apologised he may still be prosecuted." I was not aware that simply apologising could get you off a criminal offense.

MrP

528i

Give the guy a break, he's got enough problems already ~ so he took a wrong turn?, big deal.

Apparently he's down quite afew guinea's from the races aswell, talk about having a bad hair-day, the arresting Garda could have shown abit more tact on this one, McDaid's served his country well.

Mr E

Bullsh1t. HE WAS DRINK DRIVING. What part of that is hard to understand?
He is a moron. Throw the bloody book at him.

DukeDredd

Ah sure grand so. I'll go out tonight and drink a few gallons of beer and attempt to drive home. If i'm caught i'll make a public apology and tell everyone about what a hard time i'm having at the moment and i'll get away with it scott free. Grand.

Borzoi

Moving to politics (probably goint to the recycle bin after that)

RedorDead

Totally unacceptable.

Is it just me or do Donegal people have a higher amount of accidents and fatalities annualy than the natural average??

You always seem to hear about people dying in crashes in the donegal area - usually late at night , and as is the case with the majority of late night accidents - in one or both of the vehicles involved - the driver is usually plastered.

Anyone else noticed this re: Donegal road users ?

peasant

IMO JMcD is beyond discussion ...no leeway whatsoever! I mean, how out of it do you have to be, not to notice that you're going against the traffic on a motorway.

What REALLY gets my heckles up is the underlying attitude behind all those "feel sorry for him" comments"

In my mind these comments give away several possible ways of thinking:

sorry he got caught, after all t'was just a few drinks he's had, sure there's nothing wrong with that, is there ?

sorry for him...but *PHEEEW* ...could just as well have been me ...

sorry for him, he's such a nice guy. What do you mean, he could have killed somebody? He didn't, now did he?

sorry for him ...but really I feel sorry for us. Because of that **** our party is in disrepute again and we all have watch our bloody backs now when we're out, having some fun

Aaargh ...

ionapaul

What are the bets he'll top the poll if he runs next election? We love our criminals and lovable blackguards, don't we...?

Traffic

From the indo today:

FORMER Minister Jim McDaid drunkenly drove up the wrong side of a busy dual carriageway before a concerned haulier brought a madcap chase to a safe end.

The Fianna Fail TD and former minister was then arrested by a plainclothes garda who had also joined the pursuit.

It is understood he stopped his car after the haulier, who had been pursuing him, used his articulated vehicle to block two lanes of a roundabout.

As Dr McDaid last night unreservedly apologised for his behaviour, details of his bizarre behaviour emerged.

The Donegal TD was apparently returning from the Punchestown racing festival on Tuesday night.

An eyewitness said Dr McDaid was still wearing a badge for the Punchestown races when he was stopped. The lorry driver had spotted him at some time between 10pm and 11pm driving on the N7, heading from the direction of Dublin towards Kildare.

The TD turned left on a slip road from the N7, heading for Newbridge, and came to Newhall roundabout.

There, he turned right and drove the wrong way around the Newhall roundabout before going up the wrong side of the dual carriageway known locally as the Newbridge Road.

Other vehicles, which met the TD's brand new Volvo, were seen swerving to avoid the car. At one stage an ambulance also met him, flashing its lights.

Staying in contact with the gardai, the haulier continued on his side of the dual carriageway and flashed lights to alert vehicles coming from the opposite direction.

Finally, the haulier was able to get to the Togher roundabout in advance of the TD and used his truck to block two lanes and halt the car's progress.

The haulier then got out and removed the keys from the ignition of Dr McDaid's car. A plainclothes Garda, who had also joined the pursuit, made the arrest before uniformed gardai arrived.

An eyewitness who observed the TD when his car was finally stopped said: "He was civilised but at the same time he did not know what he was doing." He described him as being "very, very drunk". He added: "If he had met an articulated truck there would have been phenomenal damage."

Details of his arrest emerged as Taoiseach Bertie Ahern made a plea in the Dail for motorists to drive responsibly and with care for others over the bank holiday weekend.

Officially, gardai have only confirmed a car was stopped just outside Naas, Co Kildare and a man was arrested under Section 49 of the Road Traffic Act for driving under the influence of alcohol, and later released.

They said the man was taken to Naas Garda station and later released. Samples have been sent to the Medical Bureau of Road Safety.

As news of the development spread yesterday, Dr McDaid issued a brief statement apologising for the incident. He said: "I wish to unreservedly apologise for my serious lapse in behaviour last night. It was completely wrong of me to drive a car while under the influence of drink. This will now be a matter for the Gˆrdai to deal with."

The former minister said he accepted that, as a public representative, he had a particular obligation to uphold the law. "I wish to apologise to my family, my constituents and to the Gardai," he added.

News of the arrest came as Taoiseach Bertie Ahern yesterday reiterated the Government's commitment to tackling road safety.

But he warned: "You cannot have a garda on every road, on every motorway, on every back road in the country to monitor people's habits of driving. You have to appeal to the good sense of drivers."

Mr Ahern appointed Dr McDaid to his first Cabinet in 1997 as Minister for Tourism and Sport. He lost out in the 2002 Cabinet team and was appointed a Junior Minister at the transport department.

Since his return to the backbenches last September after the Taoiseach's ministerial reshuffle, Dr McDaid has publicly disputed Mr Ahern's claim that he resigned and insisted he was sacked.

As Junior Transport Minister in November 2002, he spearheaded the Government's anti-drink driving campaign. At the launch of that campaign he warned: "Some drivers still choose to ignore our drink driving laws and as a result innocent lives are destroyed."

He said the National Safety Council's campaign, called Shame, sent a forceful message that drinking and driving carried high-risk consequences.

The then minister said drink-driving was not acceptable at any time of the year.

Nuttzz

RedorDead wrote:

Totally unacceptable.

Is it just me or do Donegal people have a higher amount of accidents and fatalities annualy than the natural average??

You always seem to hear about people dying in crashes in the donegal area - usually late at night , and as is the case with the majority of late night accidents - in one or both of the vehicles involved - the driver is usually plastered.

Anyone else noticed this re: Donegal road users ?

Yes, but its a border problem really, a lot of drivers from NI go gaga when they cross the border as they know all the cops can do is give them a fine, they can take the car but rarely do. Likewise when people from the south go up there they do the same from what I have seen.

Caixa

RedorDead wrote:

Totally unacceptable.

Is it just me or do Donegal people have a higher amount of accidents and fatalities annualy than the natural average??

You always seem to hear about people dying in crashes in the donegal area - usually late at night , and as is the case with the majority of late night accidents - in one or both of the vehicles involved - the driver is usually plastered.

Anyone else noticed this re: Donegal road users ?

There have been a lot of accidents over the past year, but very few were drink related.

Villain

Ah bless the poor lad he cheats on his wife and makes life hard for himself then we'r supposed to feel sorry for him after he has driven against traffic on a motorway while being pis*ed.

Poor fella, earning a TD's wage and still practicing as a GP part-time, sher maybe we could all club together to get him a good lawyer who will be able to get him off on a technical issue.

Poor fella

monument

causal wrote:

[cynical]
He'll get off on some technicality :rolleyes:

It was obvious he was on his way to the Dail, so he hasn’t broken any law what so ever…. :rolleyes:

Repli

528i wrote:

Give the guy a break, he's got enough problems already ~ so he took a wrong turn?, big deal.

Apparently he's down quite afew guinea's from the races aswell, talk about having a bad hair-day, the arresting Garda could have shown abit more tact on this one, McDaid's served his country well.

He didn't just 'take a wrong turn', he was DRUNK
Drink driving/speeding are the 2 biggest causes of road deaths in Ireland
Would you be saying 'give him a break' if he caused an accident which killed your whole family?

Tobias Greeshman

Apparently a truck had to cut him off near naas, to stop him, its very rarely even drunk drivers in this country go this far, drive this careless (I've rarely heard of drunk drivers driving the wrong way down motorways, although Im sure its happened). Im sorry but Id like to see him made an example of, he feckin' deserves it.

Repli wrote:

Would you be saying 'give him a break' if he caused an accident which killed your whole family?

All the more reason that he should be punished to the full extent of the law for how potentially dangerous the situation he caused could have been.

seamus

You see, this is why we need all of the penalty points offences to be brought in.

Had they existed this week:

• Driving when unfit - 3 Points
• Careless driving - 5 points
• Failure to comply with traffic lane markings - 1 point
• Contravention of requirements regarding driving of vehicles at road junctions - 1 point
• Failure to drive on left - 1 point
• Failure to turn vehicle left onto a roundabout - 1 point

Total: 12 points. Instant disqualification, on top of fines, and further disqualification.

A Dub in Glasgo

True but FF will just give a chauffeur driven car courtesy of the tax-payers

McDaid is an idiot of the highest order with a stunt like this.

Auslander

Like Orwell said "some animals are more equal than others"

Funny thing is that if anything like this happened in the UK or mainland Europe the politician would be lynched.

Bertie knows and depends on Irish people's short memorys and the compliant media to get what HE wants.

Isn't that why they're all there?

Nuttzz

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

True but FF will just give a chauffeur driven car courtesy of the tax-payers .

BS only full ministers get a driver, if hes off the road the tax payers wont thankfully foot the bill

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

McDaid is an idiot of the highest order with a stunt like this.

Just another one of the 100's of gobsh!tes who do this every week, but thats no defence. I'm delighted he was caught.

he launched the NSC "shame" campaign a few years ago, where they showed a young driver DUI, how ironic really

causal

It's all a bit of a crapfork really

Crapfork (n) A misfortunate occurrence which is equally as amusing and ironic as it is annoying.

-from Silas .sig


causal

mike65

Listening to liveline RTE Radio 1 this afternoon some Donegal gobsh1te (and freind of Tipsy McDaid) said with a straight voice that it was'nt a resigning matter as he had'nt killed anyone....well thats okay then.

Mike.

tim3115

Unbelievable behaviour.

I heard some of the Liveline show, unreal comments coming in there. Some said give him a break, some said we make mistakes all the time...I seriously don't know what goes on in these people's heads at times.


Anyways, a penalty points system is useless.

What you need is a full-on, harsh (or so they'll say) system. You mess up. You never drive again. Not this '3 chances' crap. Prison, community service. The whole job lot.