Murphy row shows it is ‘hard to be right in politics’, Howlin says

Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin has described the controversy around Minister of State for European Affairs Dara Murphy accepting a lift from gardaí to the airport as an example of how it is hard to be right in politics.

Fine Gael TD Mr Murphy has faced criticism for accepting a lift from Mitchelstown, Co Cork to Dublin Airport after his car broke down.

Speaking on his way into Cabinet on Tuesday Mr Howlin said he had not followed the controversy closely.

"Had he claimed the taxi fare of €350 you would be asking me about that. Had he not attended the European Council meeting dealing with refugees you'd be asking about that. So in politics it's hard to be right," Mr Howlin said.

Mr Murphy said a duty Garda sergeant told him they were having a quiet evening and that the resources were there to allow them to drop him to the airport to catch an early morning flight to Brussels for a meeting on Monday.

On Monday night Mr Murphy was selected by Fine Gael to run in Cork North Central. He beat Senator Colm Burke by 188 votes to 172 to be the party's standard bearer in the four-seat constituency.

Mr Murphy and a taxi driver have given conflicting accounts of their dealings on a night the Minister’s car broke down shortly after 3am on September 13th when he was driving to Dublin Airport to catch a 6.40am flight to Brussels for a meeting about the Syrian crisis.

Mr Murphy said he found it difficult to source a taxi due to the early hour and contacted the Garda Síochána for assistance.

He rang gardaí initially to ask them to drive him to a taxi base, but they offered to bring him to Portlaoise but brought him all the way when they became pressed for time.

Taxi driver Gerdy Murphy from Mitchelstown told The Irish Times the Minister declined his services on cost grounds.

“The bottom line is that he didn’t want to pay the taxi fare. Initially I said I might not be able to drive him because I was working all night and I was worried about tiredness. I rang a number of colleagues who were not available and when I got back after 10 minutes he said that he could drive my car and offered to do so.

“I was quite prepared to drive him knowing that if I got tired he could take over and I told him so. I was only about six minutes from the breakdown area.