This from today’s IT, Willie O’Dea, speaking on his resignation:

Mr O’Dea said he had resigned in the interests of the country to ensure that there was stability in Government in the middle of a very serious economic crisis.

“I can think of other situations affecting Ministers, which I won’t elaborate on now, which were far worse but they survived. I recall being in a government with one of them and at the time I didn’t call for his resignation – in fact I defended him in every way possible.”

When we hear such assertions from the former Minister – Deputy O’Dea clearly views such actions and behaviour as virtuous, and no doubt his mind has cast his resignation in the same light  – we know that his moral compass is completely skewed.

He is gone now and good riddance. But what does the episode say about those who remain: about the Fianna Fail and Green TDs who voted in confidence of such a man retaining one of the most senior positions in the country? People who didn’t care at all about the ethics of the situation, only their own position in government.

Each TD from these two parties, to a man and woman, did not have a problem with this man’s behaviour or with his perverse view of the world – where it is OK to cast such slanders in the first place, where he is the victim, where he is now acting honourably to save the government (and the country). They supported him. Until the opposition and the media hammered them for it. And then they withdrew that support. Not because they had a problem with what O’Dea had done or how he debased yet further the practice of politics in this country. But because their own positions were suddenly in jeopardy.

Another appalling episode in Irish politics, which is only getting sicker despite all that has gone on in the past 18 months. How much more can people take of this? Before we either give up, or stand up (or throw up).