Longford Leader Editorial: Are we all in this together?
The 'social event' in The Merrion Hotel had a whiff of last summer's Golfgate fiasco to it, in that it too seemed redolent of a scenario whereby there is one set of laws for one class of people and another for everyone else.
That perception needs little encouragement to gain a foothold in the mind of a public jaded and fatigued by this seemingly interminable pandemic.
This faux pas also came at a time when plans are underway to publish a roadmap out of the remaining Covid restrictions and navigate a path through the potentially perilous months that lie ahead.
The central overriding message of the past week has been, as it was with the Golfgate debacle, that there cannot be one set of rules for the governing class, and another for everyone else.
A central pillar of good leadership is to lead by example. The Irish public have generally been very compliant with all the public health guidelines and rules, and they certainly don't need to have to have their noses rubbed in it, in any sense.
The clarion cry of the effort throughout the pandemic has been that we are all in this together.
That has to mean exactly that on a practical level, and not be merely an empty piece of rhetoric.