Waterford Senator John Cummins breaks silence on Golfgate dinner

Waterford Senator John Cummins broke his silence by attending the infamous Oireachtas Golf Society dinner in Galway.

The Fine Gael politician apologized profusely and repeatedly on WLR’s Déise Today show, but said he would not resign his post.

The senator told anchor Damien Tiernan that, having considered resigning, he preferred to “make up for my mistakes rather than walk away from them.”

He was determined to “regain the trust of the people of Waterford”, whom he has served as a politician for 11 years.

Cummins said he had traveled to Clifden from Dublin with a friend the day before to play golf. They had “ironically traveled separately to comply with the guidelines.”

He hadn’t given much thought to dinner, he said, but he “should have seen it for what it was” upon entering the hotel. “I shouldn’t have been that stupid,” he conceded.

The interviewee, who has had the whip removed from the party, said he “honestly doesn’t have an answer to give” about why he stayed, but denied that it was to ingratiate himself with others.

He had attended a room of about 30 people, but only realized how many and who were actually present when a partition was removed to facilitate the speech by Agriculture Minister Dara Calleary.

He fully accepted responsibility for causing distress and anger through what Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Feargháil has called “gross stupidity” and for which he sincerely apologized.

Cummins had “gone to the ground” since the incident occurred, not because of any advice to do so, he said, but because he was struggling to cope.

He declined to elaborate on the abuse personally and on social media, but said the whole thing has left him and his family “for six.” He will probably live with me for the rest of my life, “he said.

He hopes that people will finally judge him for his future actions and not for the past.

In a mixed reaction, many listeners expressed sympathy, while others dismissed their responses as “crocodile tears.”