FIANNA Fáil TD Willie O’Dea is no stranger to controversy or making headlines.
Back in 2005, the seasoned Limerick politician got himself in a spot of bother when he was Minister for Defence in posing for that now infamous photograph during an exercise at the Curragh camp in County Kildare. The iconic image, which has since been printed on t-shirts, caps, and mugs, appeared on the front pages almost every national newspaper the next day to some controversy.
Smiling that brazen-faced grin so well recognised in Limerick, while pointing a gun at a camera, Deputy O’Dea was accused by those in the opposition camp of glamorising gun crime. Soon after, he was asked on entering the Dáil to check in his weapon “in the interest of security”.
O’Dea got his 15 minutes and everyone else had a good laugh at his expense. It was a storm in a teacup, but we all remember the gun-toting image in question, now etched on the collective Limerick consciousness.
Of course, if the Fianna Fáil man posed for the same photograph today, there would be video footage and running commentary aplenty as social media lit up and Willie went viral.
20 years on from this infamous faux-pas, Deputy O’Dea is now producing his own digital hits, and hopes to give famous YouTubers like MrBeast and Jacksepticeye a run for their money. (And if you don’t know who they are, talk to your children or grandchildren, they will quickly put you straight.)
O’Dea has checked his weapon at the door, but his tendency for grabbing our attention hasn’t been lost on the roguish public servant. He recently set up his own YouTube channel where he posts regular videos on people’s entitlements in relation to tax, social welfare, and consumer rights.
“Before I went into politics, I used to do a regular tax and legal column called Whispers in the Limerick Leader. It was particularly for farmers, when they first came under the tax rules. From there it branched out into a general questions and answers forum. So I did that, and of course, I gave it up when I got elected,” the veteran Limerick politician explained.
“Now with the age of technology, I said I’d go back and help people out. There’s a lot of things that regularly come up for people, for example ‘What happens if I have a noisy neighbour?’ ‘How do I access the Fair Deal Scheme?’ ‘What happens if there’s a derelict house in the area?’”
‘When I retire from politics’
And with that, Deputy O’Dea’s YouTube channel was born. A former barrister and accountant, he is already getting a huge reaction to his new platform and is receiving questions from all over the country.
“I did a video recently on wills and what happens if the parties aren’t married. I was just inundated with queries. People wanted to know about succession rights and what happens if you don’t have an official divorce. I was afraid to open my phone. My email was consistently going, so this is something I hope to do more of when I retire from politics,” he reveals.
Stop the lights, this reporter thought mid interview, did Willie O’Dea, long-serving TD since 1982 and a dynamo who walks the length and breadth of the city like a Duracell Bunny, utter the word “retire”?
He laughs when I put the question to him at his Farranshone office.
“We’re having this conversation in a very uncertain world,” he replies, like the experienced politician he is.
“I couldn’t safely predict what’s going to happen in six months’ time, don’t mind four and a half years, but never say never.”
Helping people, O’Dea admits, is the part of his job he enjoys the most, and he sees his new YouTube channel as an additional aid on this front.
“I get great satisfaction from being able to answer their question. But then, there’s some questions to which there aren’t any obvious answers. It’s all real life stuff, for example, the latest thing is, and the media are full of stories for the last week about it, the rent changes. It is very complex. I did a video on that recently and I don’t know how simple I made it. I probably didn’t make it simple enough, but I tried to explain it from the point of view of the landlord and the tenant.”
When asked whether he sees the government ever getting a real handle on the housing crisis, O’Dea takes the view that more private investment is needed.
“There was a lot of private foreign investment coming in that Minister Noonan initiated as Minister of Finance (former Limerick TD and Finance Minister from 2011 to 2017, Michael Noonan). They gave them concessions to attract them in and we found then after a while that the rents were going up massively so the government brought in rent control and investment kind of dried up,” he explains.
“Now what they’re trying to do is relax the rent control a bit and balance it by giving more rights to the tenants. I’ve heard fellas in the Dáil stand up and say this will bring more investment, but all they can really say is that they hope it will bring in more investment.”
‘Social media has exacerbated political divisions’
The internet as we know can be a nasty place, full of vitriol, criticism, and abusive tirades. Now that Deputy O’Dea has opted to place himself front and centre in the sometimes caustic cesspool, I ask him about his own experience to date as a politician.
Are you into social media, Willie?
“I am. I’m clued into it through the younger members of my family, my grandnephews and nieces, who would be more clued into it, but I would be fairly technology savvy,” he states.
“I mean, social media has certainly exacerbated political divisions. All you have to do is look at the States to see that, it’s totally divided. But it is extraordinary how people forget themselves online. If you’re a journalist writing a piece for a newspaper, you are constrained by the libel laws but on social media, in a lot of cases, people are anonymous and can say what they like. It’s like a Jekyll and Hyde situation, the worst comes out when they’re on social media.
“I have seen some colleagues get fixated on it, which is very bad for your mental health, I’ll say no names, but they insist on replying to everything, any abuse, and getting involved in the argument.
“You must realise, you have a busy day, the fellows you are arguing with probably have all day. I walk away. That works for me, and I don’t let it get to me.”
