It chokes me to say it

But I'm proud of Baby Ian.

Not because he's been diddling the taxpayer over his office expenses (150 seater office, Ian? WTF?) or because he was blatantly lobbying to privatise the Giant's Causeway into the hands of his pal, private developer Seymour Sweeney.

Nope. I'm proud of Ian Junior because he has singlehandedly resurrected a political practice I feared had been abandoned forever on the island of Ireland. That of resigning when you've been caught doing wrong.

Okay, he hasn't (and won't) admit he's done wrong. And he only resigned to protect his da, who also has a series of hard office-related questions to answer.

But it is entirely refreshing to see an Irish politician having the relative decency of falling on their sword when caught out.

I do hope the denizens of Leinster House will take note and learn from this. There is a long queue of wrongdoers in there who by any moral compass ought to have jumped a long time ago.

Top of my personal list are Mary Harney, for crimes against the Irish people by seeking to privatise the health service into her funders' pockets, and Bertie Ahern, for the most eye-wateringly bizarre personal finance practices ever engaged in by an alleged Finance Minister.

Who would you like to see emulate Little Ian and resign, then?