Gardaí driving ministers not a good use of resources - White

Minister for Communications Alex White has said he does not believe an incident which saw two gardaí driving a minister of state from Cork to Dublin airport was an appropriate use of policing resources.

Mr White said Fine Gael's Dara Murphy, who has been criticised over such an incident earlier this month, found himself in an "unusual" situation when his car broke down in the early hours.

The incident occurred shortly after 3am on September 13th when Mr Murphy 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 An Garda Síochána seeking assistance. He rang gardaí initially to ask them to drive him to a taxi base, and they offered to bring him to Portlaoise.

He said the plan was to source a taxi there but they became tight on time and the gardaí continued on to the airport.

Asked about the matter on RTÉ’s Saturday with Claire Byrne programme, Mr White said discussion of the matter now was “wisdom after the event”.

“It’s not the appropriate use of Garda resources,” he said, adding that the days of gardaí driving politicians around had been left behind.

Taxi driver Gerdy Murphy, from Mitchelstown, has alleged that Mr Murphy declined his services on cost grounds. Dara Murphy said he was already on the road by the time the taxi driver came back to him.

Speaking on the same programme, Gerdy Murphy questioned why Dara Murphy would have asked him for a price if he was already on the road.

He also questioned why the Minister of State had not asked the gardaí to drop him off and allow him to pick him up to continue the journey after he offered to drive him.