In an highly charged interview on RTE’s News at One, Minister for Defence told Sean O’Rourke that he was a victim as the controversy over his Limerick Leader interview continued.

Willie O'Dea smiles through the pain

The Limerick TD was clearly emotional as recent events had been ‘very difficult’ for him in the wake of his allegations against Sinn Fein’s Maurice Quinlivan which suggested the councillor was brothel keeper. As he was further challenged as to whether or not he received the information he forgot he mentioned to a journalist but then remembered after he’d made a sworn affidavit from the Gardai, Mr O’Dea could be heard keening softly ‘No more, no more’.

A Fianna Fail insider told the Irish Sentinel that the Minister was ‘in bits’ and called on the opposition and media to ’stop being so unspeakably mean’.

“This persecution of a great man is beyond the pale. Yes, Willie O’Dea is also a victim. A victim in that he was made pay compensation in a defamation case. A victim in that he has been subjected to the kind of questioning in the Dail that no other politician has ever had to face. A victim in that he is being made tell his ludicrous story over and over again? Have they forgotten that he is a Fianna Fail minister or something? Since when was it acceptable to hold a member of this great party accountable to their actions and, less importantly, their words?”

“It’s been tough on Willie. Imagine how hard it must be to sit there and have your wrongdoings exposed in public when they should have just been ignored the way they are for any other member of Fianna Fail. Those pictures of him laughing smugly only hide the heartbreak and anguish he is feeling at this moment in time. He won’t be seen to be affected but on the inside he is crying like John Waters writing about Katy French”.

And the Minister’s future looked ever more uncertain as a Green Party meeting to discuss their support of the government took place. Well placed sources told us that John Gormley and Eamon Ryan got down on their knees to beg for full support of the coalition and their Ministerial salaries while a number of party members, who between them found an ounce of morality, are determined to ‘do the right thing’.

Speaking on his Twitter account, party Chairman Dan Boyle called for Willie O’Dea’s resignation and set up a Facebook group “I’m just testing the waters here but if I were, hypothetically speaking, to go against the party leadership and continue to condemn O’Dea would you still be my friends?”.

As of this afternoon almost tens of people had joined, all the while Willie O’Dea’s moustache is twitching like a geriatric Yosemite Sam as his political career remains uncertain.