Healy-Rae had his window rolled down and was talking on the phone to his son Jackie, a Kerry councilman, as a man walked into the road and started punching the politician in the face. While the attacker fled on foot, police helped Healy-Rae reach a nearby hospital to have his facial wounds stitched up.
Prime Minister Micheál Martin said the attack on Healy-Rae — who had been a junior minister in his coalition government before his surprise resignation in April — could mark a watershed in how Irish politicians operate in public.
“We’ve never had this before in our society,” said Martin, who has represented the southwest city of Cork in parliament since 1989.
Reflecting the relative informality and openness of Irish political life, the prime minister spent part of this own week pressing the flesh with thousands of farmers at the National Ploughing Championships, one of the country’s perennial events featuring face-to-face contact with politicians from all parties. But there, too, Martin, faced an attempted assault and a suddenly beefed-up security detail.
“Our democracy is relatively unusual in the sense that our members of parliament, and indeed ministers and myself, can walk through our streets unhindered,” said Martin, who called the attack on Healy-Rae “a significant moment that we have to take very seriously.”
Healy-Rae, who was recovering Thursday at his Kerry home, issued a statement vowing he would “not be deterred” from politics.