THERE WAS MINOR drama at Leinster House this morning as a Labour TD’s car crashed into the barrier on the Kildare Street side of the Oireachtas complex.
Robert Dowds was driving behind another car going through the Kildare Street entrance after the ramp had been lowered, but he got stuck on the barrier as it was being put up again.
Dowds jumped out of the car but failed to apply the handbrake and as the vehicle rolled back onto the busy street an on-duty guard was forced to jump in and apply the brake.
“I’m okay, I got a slight cut on the back of my hand, but other than that I’m fine,” Dowds told TheJournal.ie this lunchtime, saying that “fortunately nobody else was hurt”.
“It’s actually a time when I would be most nervous – when driving in behind somebody else, it’s risky for driver and the usher in charge of raising the ramp.”
The car received minor damage to the undercarriage but the Dublin Mid-West TD said it can still be driven.
An onlooker said an “annoyed cyclist” had their bike clipped as the car rolled out onto Kildare Street but that they were “reasonably understanding when it was revealed the car was driverless!”
It’s not the first time that TD has got into difficulty at the main gates of Leinster House.
On the first day of the Dáil in March 2011, the Fine Gael TD Mary Mitchell-O’Connor inadvertently drove her car down the pedestrian plinth.
While last year a Mercedes Benz got stuck on the barrier as the driver attempted to exit Leinster House.
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