“WE’LL INTERVIEW YOU in a minute if you want to go across the road, how about that?”
The frustration had built to breaking point by the time FM104′s Ruairí Carroll came up with his reasonable sounding (if entirely insincere) peace proposal.
If ever there was a reporter who could make an interview offer sound like a threat, Ruairí’s your man.
It seemed to work — to some degree at least.
TD Paul Murphy, an AAA councillor, and the assembled members of the Dáil-based fourth estate were engaged in the usual merry-go-round of questions and answers on ‘Jobstown’ outside the Dáil this morning, in response to the latest batch or arrests.
Was Joan Burton falsely imprisoned? … No, but she should have known better than to go up there anyway — swanning around the place like some sort of latter-day Marie Antoinette.
Would she have been safe, had she decided to get out of the car? … Sure, absolutely.
You know the drill.
Things took a turn for the slightly-bizarre however, when the left-wing TD was interrupted by a heckler with views somewhere far, far further to the left of his own (bordering on the incomprehensible, in fact).
Things began to kick off as TheJournal.ie posed a question on the recent arrests over last November’s protest at An Cosán — and whether the number of gardaí involved was justified.
“That’s a silly question,” came a forceful interjection.
Clearly not content with the direction the ad-hoc press conference was going, the grey-haired interrupter chimed in again after a few seconds.
Paul, will you stop answering stupid questions from these people?
A broad smile from the recently-arrested deputy soon subtly transmogrified into a fixed grin — and then a look of polite, nodding frustration as he realised some journalists would probably choose to spend their time writing wry gif-based colour pieces, instead of devoting their column inches to the march he’s organising in the city centre tomorrow.
In case you happen to be without full video-playing capability at the moment — the man’s wide-ranging interruption took in the incident where President Higgins was called a “parasite”, Pat Kenny (?) and RTÉ licence-payer money — before Councillor Brian Leech wrestled back control of the situation.
“Stupid question” guy was back just a few minutes later, however — prompting Leech to politely suggest he organise his own press conference, and Carroll to ask that he kindly take himself across the (busy) road.
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