Ireland reacts to the Dominic Cummings scandal

While it's our near neighbours who've had to endure him being Britain's de facto PM - somebody's got to run the country when you're having all those holidays - there's been plenty of ire aimed at Dominic Cummings on this side of the Irish Sea as well following yesterday's Lockdown breaking revelations and Boris Johnson's decision to stand by him.
Quick to react was Northern Ireland Alliance Party leader Naomi Long who reflects: "Us: Stay at home. Protect the NHS. Save Lives. Them: Well, you're a special case. You're savvy. You can use your judgement. You do what suits you best. Rules are for the rest, not for us."
Addressing the defence of Cummings by Health Minister Matt Hancock, she adds: "You advised anyone who had the virus not to go out for ANY reason, not even food or medicine. You're the Health Minister: stop defending his reckless, selfish behaviour. He should go."
Echoing a thought that's crossed our mind, illustrator Annie West asks: "What if this #cummings thing is a cleverly designed distraction from something else. Something worse?"
Musician Niall 'Swimmers' Jackson has a top suggestion for some of Annie's colleagues: "Free idea for political cartoonists; Cummings holding up puppets of Johnson, Gove, Rabb, Hancock etc... and sneezing on them as they rigorously defend him. Maybe packing them in to the boot of his car like in Toy Story. Ready to discard them at a moment's notice.
"The good thing about the whole Cummings thing is that at least you know anyone defending him is also an absolute prick," he adds.
Incidentally, make sure to check out the brilliant new Swimmers album, Murmuration, which has been getting lots of RTÉ Radio 1 airplay and is available from his Bandcamp.
Says author Liz Nugent: "I write despicable characters all the time. But if I wrote a character like Dominic Cummings, my editor would take out her big red pen and scrawl ‘NOT CREDIBLE’ across the manuscript. And she’d be right. Twice."
Nugent adds: "A female teenage hacker would break into Cummings files and download all of the incriminating files and photos to the web. They’d all go to jail and Keir Starmer would take over with the little girl as his advisor. Damn it. I think I just wrote my first happy ending."
Her fellow scribe Naoise Dolan, who features in the Hot Press Double Cover Special, makes the very good point that: "Anyone defending Cummings on the basis that the son 'has autism' literally doesn't know enough about autism not to talk about it like it's an illness."
An Irish man living with autism, Nathan Cornfiel, messages: "Don't weaponise autism. And don't pretend to care about it to shield Cummings when you stood back and watched the Conservatives slash mental health services to the bone. Signed, An autistic man."
Observes poet John Moynes: "If only the Tories still had John Gummer. He'd sort this mess out by making his four year old daughter eat Dominic Cummings at a press conference to prove he's not dangerous."
"I really would love to know the juice that this lad has on Boris," Niall Breslin says above a picture of Cummings pushing his way through the media scrum outside his London home.
Siobhan McSweeney, AKA Derry Girls' Sister Michael, was so angered by Boris Johnson's response that she hit the Twitter CAPS button: "PEOPLE DIED HORRIBLY WITHOUT THEIR FAMILY BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU TOLD THEM TO DO. You are a DISGRACE."
In addition to tweeting out the Dominic Cummings Must Be Removed As Aide To PM After Breaking Lockdown Rules petition, her 'Wee Clare' castmate Nicola Coughlan says: "I hope anyone else who broke lockdown rules and hasn’t yet been found out is having a nice little sweat for themselves tonight."
Scroll down for more Irish reaction to the Cummings scandal plus some of the more pertinent and/or amusing tweets from Blighty. One thing's for certain - this ain't going away.

#dominiccummimgs pic.twitter.com/kp9ZFVnxgW

— Declan Meehan (@radiodeclan) May 24, 2020

The entire UK is irate
At Dominic Cummings of late,
Who does as he pleases
(Takes drives, spreads diseases)
With cover from BoJo, his mate.

— Limericking (@Limericking) May 24, 2020

If you haven’t had a chance to listen to @TheWeekatWork podcast yet, have a listen today. Dominic Cummings even gets a mention. More importantly, @LNBDublin’s dog has two inputs which were better than the hosts. A review of the weeks news...https://t.co/fQwsBll9Ff

— Dave Gibney (@davegibney) May 25, 2020

During this lockdown, my 8 yr old daughter has been undergoing treatment for cancer. There were times when I could not be in hospital to hold her hand during treatment. I wanted to ‘care for my child as a father’ too. Dominic Cummings can go fuck himself.

— Andy Lewis (@lecanardnoir) May 23, 2020

pic.twitter.com/jZX2MOZLqp

— Simon Pegg (@Simon_Pegg) May 24, 2020

yeah that civil service tweet is good, but it’s even better when it’s being read out slowly on BBC News pic.twitter.com/dxiRvN9MJZ

— Jon Stone (@joncstone) May 24, 2020

When you find out who it was, let us know. I want to give them a year’s salary. https://t.co/D7DRlwcjty

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 24, 2020

I’m sure you’ll find that whoever did this was (*checks notes*)... following the instincts of any normal father. https://t.co/vLZaTxQB8t

— Dara Ó Briain (@daraobriain) May 24, 2020

Ronnie Biggs is to be posthumously pardoned after revelations that he ‘acted legally, responsibly and with integrity like any father would have' pic.twitter.com/zFbspJN3lZ

— (@Trump_ton) May 25, 2020

This van has just turned up outside Dominic Cummings house @SkyNews pic.twitter.com/TVhmlWI9zN

— Sam Holder (@samholdertv) May 24, 2020