Shane Ross is the Minister for Transport, Tourism, and Sport. That is a lot of different departments to cover.
Mr Ross has become infamous for his, let’s say, questionable knowledge of sport, and the names of people who play those sports.
Here’s hoping that he knows a thing or two more about tourism and transport, because he seems to be lacking when it comes to the ‘Sporting’ part of his brief.
Ross is clumsily happy to show us, time and again, that he has a poor knowledge of sports and Irish sportspeople. His tweet during the Denmark game summing up his knowledge of the beautiful game:
0-0 here at the Aviva .Ireland passing ball well in first ten minutes pic.twitter.com/v9iBZIXeya
— Shane Ross (@Ross_Shane1) October 13, 2018
The replies weren’t kind: ‘Another Shane Ross gaff…. we have hardly touched the ball! We are the ones in green, just in case’, said one punter.
This little stumble is the first in a long (long) line of gaffes by our sports minister. So let’s take a trip down memory lane and recall some of the biggest blunders Minister Shane Ross has pulled off in office.
He first took on his current role in May 2016, and it wasn’t long before his first misstep. Just a few short months after the start of his ministerial reign, he faced the disastrous Rio Olympics.
August 2016
Katie Taylor flamed out while defending her boxing crown during the last Olympics, losing a split decision to Finnish fighter Mira Potkonen.
Not that anyone told the Minister. Hours after Katie’s deeply hurtful loss, Shane Ross wished her the best of luck on Twitter.
‘Go Katie go!’, he hollered on Twitter hours after her loss, in a tweet that has inexplicably never been deleted.
Go Katie go !
— Shane Ross (@Ross_Shane1) August 15, 2016
Here in Rio . Honoured to be cheering as Katie enters ring . Go Katie !
— Shane Ross (@Ross_Shane1) August 15, 2016
The response was brutal. ‘Enjoy. I’m at Ireland V Italy at Italia 90, can’t wait to see how we do’, is how the replies generally sounded.
But Ross’s ‘mare at the Rio Olympics didn’t stop there. Not only did he have the Pat Hickey ticketing scandal to deal with, but he also managed to get hurdles runner Thomas Barr’s name wrong… twice.
Barr managed to grab an incredible 4th place during the 400m hurdles final, not that that was enough for Ross to get his name right.
Who is Thomas Barry? A little bit of a mix up from our Sports Minister Shane Ross https://t.co/jwnxv34An9
— Cormac Byrne (@cor_byrne) August 18, 2016
He managed to call the track and field runner ‘Thomas Barry’ twice in rapid succession.
July 2017
Shane Ross, for whatever reason, holds some incredibly lofty ambitions for this little island of ours, as he says the country should ‘think about’ hosting the Summer Olympics in the future.
While that’s not a gaffe in itself, his follow-up to a Fine Gael senator saying we should host the Commonwealth Games sure is.
‘I haven’t a clue quite honestly whether it’s a good or a bad idea . . . but sure let’s explore it’, Ross said to the idea, which is pretty amazing considering that the Republic has never been in the Commonwealth.
March 2018
We’ve reached a golden age of Shane Ross so far this year, you could say we’re at Peak Ross. The Minister stumbled into a hot streak of mistakes back in March, starting off with his Kearney brother confusion.
The Minister tweeted a photo of himself with Grand Slam winning Ireland players Johnny Sexton and Rob Kearney. Ross was delighted with Sexton and Kearney, it’s just that he got his Kearneys all mixed up.
‘Congratulations and welcome home this evening to superstars Johnny Sexton and Dave Kearney’, he happily chirped on Twitter, just that he was standing next to Rob, not Dave.
The Minister followed this up with a controversy surrounding a new hockey pitch in his local constituency. He was ‘delighted to confirm’ the €150,000 funding for Wesley College’s new hockey pitch.
The public cried foul, considering that Wesley College is a private school. He also announced €150,000 for resurfacing of the all-weather pitch at another fee-paying school Loreto Beaufort.
Sinn Fein councillor Paul Donnelly described it as ‘breathtaking inequality’.
Delighted to confirm that @wesleycollege has been granted €150,000 as part of Sports Capital Programme. The funding will ensure the resurfacing of the hockey pitch and will benefit the school as well as @YMCAHC pic.twitter.com/HlPSK0mUoA
— Shane Ross (@Ross_Shane1) March 9, 2018
September 2018
The Minister came under plenty of flak for the lack of funding for the Irish women’s hockey team during their incredible World Cup run in August, but he really put his foot in it a month later.
Sanita Puspure won Ireland’s second gold at the World Rowing Championships, winning in the women’s single sculls.
It was a fantastic achievement, and it was overshadow by the mother of all mistakes in a statement released by the Minister’s office. While he has gotten names wrong before, this one was a lot worse.
A statement from Shane Ross, congratulating Sanita Puspure on her success at the Rowing World Championships. RTE’s headline refers to “Dominant Puspure” and Ross (or his ghostwriter) apparently thinks that’s her ACTUAL NAME pic.twitter.com/LnDabZGQrq
— Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly) September 16, 2018
Ross, or whoever writes his press releases, thought Sanita’s first name was Dominant. According to a representative, Shane Ross neither drafted nor saw this first press release.
Makes you wonder why a politician doesn’t read his own statements, when they are supposed to be his own words.
2018 is not over yet, so the sports minister can have more in store for us yet.
