“In a vindictive farewell Dick Roche signed the go ahead for the M3 before being tossed out of office.”
This was how Rodney Rice introduced Saturday View. I agree with his comments but judging from other reactions it would seem that Dick Roche’s action has put him in line for sainthood.
The ex minister was interviewed on Today with Tom McGurk (Fri. 15th June) where he informed the nation of what a great minister he had been.
I’m a great man for making decisions; I made the decision on nitrates when others feared to act.
My colleagues agree that I put together a very effective programme on environment.
The second Nice Treaty referendum was a very complex and badly written document. I broke it down into its component parts so that ordinary people (the peasants, so to speak) could understand it. I could have ignored the very negative views on the ‘no’ side but I chose to deal with them up front.
I’m very pleased that there are only three lines in the policy document on local government reform that weren’t written by my hand (Did he go through the whole document to check?).
I did great work on the EU Constitution.
I drove the civil servants in my dept very hard but they responded very well. (Obviously, these civil servants were an unruly rabble when Roche became minister).
I did John Gormley some service by not passing the buck to him.
(Echoes of Haughey there).
Tom McGurk was very impressed, he sounded like a schoolgirl who had just met her favourite film star. He was on the verge of breaking down in an uncontrolled giggle of admiration. He didn’t ask for the great man’s autograph on air but I suspect he was favoured afterwards.
Later on things became even more surreal when Labour TD Ruairi Quinn was being interviewed and made comment on the Roche interview.
“Any citizen of this Republic listening to that dialogue this morning, there are very few countries in the world that I can envisage where you would have that open frank exchange between an office holder and interviewer and the rest of the Republic and I just thought it was wonderful radio. I’m very proud of this county.”
I fully expected him to break out with a rendition of Amhran na bhFiann and announce his defection to Fianna Fail.
It has to be election fatigue, it just has to be….