Eoghan Harris (Independent)

Until there is in place a proper code of conduct, it is wrong that a fine Minister of State such as Deputy Trevor Sargent should be obliged to resign today on this issue, if he is to resign. I wish him well, as he has been a very good Minister of State and this kind of moral finger-wagging is very dangerous. The great Soviet dissident, Joseph Brodsky, told the politically correct girls of Brown University to keep that index finger in one's pocket because some day it would become a bullet in one's own head.