A junior minister says he doesn't think he was wrong to ask Gardaí to give him a lift from Mitchelstown to Dublin Airport - a round trip of over 420 kilometres.
EU Affairs minister Dara Murphy says he took the lift in order to attend an important EU meeting after his car broke down in the early hours of the morning.
Minister Murphy was being driven in his car from Cork to Dublin Airport when it broke down in rural Cork, outside Mitchelstown, at 3:20am on Sunday 13 September.
The minister then enlisted the help of two Gardaí who used a squad car to bring him to Dublin before returning back again - a return journey of just over 420 kilometres that would have taken almost five hours.
Minister Murphy claims he had to make a judgement call about the use of the squad car - but says he ensured that Garda resources weren't being distracted from other use.
His constituency colleague, Sinn Féin's Jonathan O'Brien, says the minister is missing the point:
The minister's claims about the controversial journey are open to question on a number of grounds.
Murphy claims that he was required in Brussels to attend a meeting dealing with the refugee crisis.
The body he was attending is called the 'General Affairs' council - which was, indeed, scheduled to hold some discussions on the migrant crisis.
The primary role of the council is to prepare matters for the full quarterly meetings of the European Council, the body comprised of the prime ministers or presents from all 28 EU member states. This is next scheduled to meet in October when the refugee crisis will almost certainly be discussed.
However, the meeting of the General Affairs Council coincided with a second meeting taking place that day - a summit of the EU's justice and home affairs ministers, also taking place in Brussels. This meeting to discuss the refugee crisis had been arranged a fortnight earlier (and was contentiously described as an "emergency" meeting, despite the two weeks' notice).
The fact that the refugee issue was being discussed at the justice meeting would have meant that any discussion at the General Affairs council, which is almost entirely comprised of junior non-cabinet ministers, would have been largely redundant - their deliberations would be superseded by the justice meeting taking place only a few hours later.
This meant that migrants became only a minor issue on the agenda for Murphy's meeting. Instead it focused on other matters like Somali pirates, sanctions against Russia, and allowing 14 member states (including us) to issue a special design on their Euro coins.
While it is possible that the refugee issue might have been discussed at the General Affairs council, the website for the meeting does not include any reference to a discussion taking place or any concrete findings. The two press releases issued afterwards focused on the EU's naval mission against piracy in the Indian Ocean, and the extension of sanctions over the situation in Ukraine.
(When similar circumstances arose earlier this year amid the Greek crisis, when finance ministers met to lay the groundwork for latter summits of EU leaders, press releases or statements were issued as a public indication of progress.)
Timing also open to question
Murphy's argument about the urgency of his flight is also open to some scrutiny.
The minister had been driving to Dublin in order to make a flight leaving Dublin at 6:40am, arriving in Brussels at 9:25am on the Sunday morning.
This is almost exactly 24 hours before the General Affairs council meeting was planned - that event was not due to get underway until 9:30am on Monday.
The minister says he was travelling on the Sunday in order to attend a meeting with Ireland's ambassador to Belgium which had also been planned for the day.
Ryanair and Aer Lingus both fly directly from Dublin to Brussels; there are five outbound flights on Sundays, with the second one leaving at 10:35am and arriving at 1:25pm. Murphy told the Irish Examiner that by the time he inquired, this flight was full.
Of the three remaining flights, the next would have seen him arrive in Brussels at 7pm. This may have been enough time to meet with the ambassador, but as the nature or topic of the meeting has not been disclosed, it is impossible to speculate whether an evening meeting may have been feasible.
What is not disputed is that Murphy did need to fly on Sunday; there is only one weekday flight from Cork to Brussels which doesn't leave Cork until 2pm, and none of the Dublin flights would have brought him there in time for a 9:30am meeting.
Today FM has separately learned that Mr Murphy had another engagement in Brussels on the Monday morning, chairing a meeting with his counterparts from the EPP, the umbrella group of Fine Gael's counterparts from across Europe. This was due to begin at 7am - though, again, any discussion of the refugee crisis was likely to be superseded within hours.
Murphy denies taxi claim
The minister also denies a claim from a local taxi driver who says he offered to bring the minister to Dublin, but was refused because his fare was too high.
The driver called The Neil Prendeville Show on Cork's Red FM this morning claiming he was called and offered to bring the minister to the airport in time for his flight.
But he claims that when he quoted a €300 fare, he was turned down - which then led Murphy to seek a lift from the Gardaí.
Murphy denied this claim - telling the same show that he called a taxi company to inquire about possible transport, but had already begun his journey to Dublin with the Gardaí by the time it responded to offer the €300 quote.
