By Paddy Clancy

RED-faced Sinn Fein TD (member of parliament) for Kerry North, Martin Ferris, has admitted he is embarrassed and disappointed over his arrest on suspicion of drunk driving.

The incident came at a time when tougher measures against drink-drivers have just been introduced. Longer driving bans and higher fines, as well as jail sentences in certain cases, were introduced just six weeks before the arrest of the former IRA gunrunner.

After initially insisting that tests will show his alcohol-intake was within legal limits, Ferris became less defiant and admitted in a local radio interview that he consumed two pints of beer and a glass of red wine in the course of last Saturday night.

When he was stopped at a road checkpoint near his home at Ardfert, Co. Kerry, in the early hours of Sunday a random breath-test indicated he was over the limit. He provided a urine sample for an analysis that will decide if he should be prosecuted.

Ferris said he still hopes the results of the analysis, expected within two weeks, will clear him but he added that if he is found to have been over the limit he will hold his hands up and apologize to the people of north Kerry.

In what political opponents saw as a damage-limitation exercise on the eve of a general election campaign Ferris publicly accepted that he shouldn’t have driven at all even with one drink. He added that he would commend the Gardai for what they are doing in the battle against drunk driving.

He acknowledged that drunk driving could not be tolerated in modern Irish society. “It is totally unacceptable and indefensible behavior,” he said.

Ferris remains on the Sinn Fein general election ticket although his arrest is expected to dent his prospects of re-election.

Labor candidate Terry O’Brien is being strongly tipped to recapture the seat once held by his party’s former leader Dick Spring until Ferris captured it in 2002.

Gertie Shields, a leader of the Mothers Against Drink Driving organization said Ferris should step down as an election candidate if he is found to have been driving over the legal limit.

“He should get all that is coming to him. Someone in a high position should be certain they are not breaking the law of the land,” she said.

Ferris, 55, is no stranger to controversy. He served 10 years in Portlaoise Prison, where he was the IRA’s commanding officer, for his part in attempting to smuggle seven tons of guns and explosives on the trawler Marita Ann which was captured by an Irish Navy vessel off the Kerry coast in 1984.