With a mixture of anger and self-pity the Speaker of Ireland’s parliament resigned yesterday after being forced from the fourth highest office in the state in the face of a public storm over his lavish expenses.

John “The Bull” O’Donoghue delivered a defiant, bitter parting speech to the Dáil Éireann during which he accused his fellow parliamentarians of hypocrisy.

“I will accept the verdict of informed judgment but not the verdict of the disingenuous,” he declared, a week after being forced to stand down by the leader of the opposition Labour party.

Mr O’Donoghue, the first Ceann Comhairle to be forced to quit in the post’s 87-year history, resigned after months of embarrassing revelations about his vice-regal lifestyle, including publicly funded junkets to international horse racing events.

His unrepentant tone spoke volumes about Ireland’s political culture, which has now fallen victim to the demise of the boom years of the Celtic Tiger economy.

Last year the chief of a profligate state training agency, Fás, was forced out of office after announcing on radio that he was “entitled to first class travel”. A row about his pension rumbles on.

The agency has yet to explain the disappearance of a luxury car while €600,000 (£564,000) was spent on an advertisement which was never broadcast.

Mr O’Donoghue’s misfortune was in part inspired by the Westminster expenses row. He reluctantly became Speaker two years ago after five years as minister of the arts, sports and tourism. Both are considered among the cushiest jobs in government. He increased the speaker’s staff from four to ten.

“I never transgressed any procedure, guideline or regulation. I never committed any offence. I am not guilty of any corruption,” the Speaker intoned to a chamber which remained stonily silent throughout his live televised resignation.

“I never took money or abused my office for my own enrichment. All these costs were paid to service providers. I did not receive a penny from such costs. These are the facts.”

His fall from grace began three months ago, when Irish newspapers began publishing previously confidential details of his expenses and travel abroad since 2002 with total bills exceeding €600,000.

The receipts included hotel rooms for more than €900 a night in Liverpool, Paris and Venice; a €473 charge for travel by car between Heathrow Terminals Three and One; and trips with 24-hour limousine cover to horse racing meetings in England and Australia, usually accompanied by his wife, all at taxpayer expense.

He released his most recent expense claims on the same day Ireland was voting on the Lisbon treaty and just two days before a Sunday newspaper was about to publish them.

Those demonstrated he was continuing to travel in his new job at exceptional levels, running up €90,000 in travel and receiving a €20,000 subsidy from Ireland’s state-funded agency for horse racing promotion.

Throughout his half-hour address to the 165-member chamber, Mr O’Donoghue refused to accept any blame, insisting that others had booked everything, not himself.

“I will not allow my life and public service to be stained by the triumph of the half-truth,” he said. He even quoted the room rates for several leading European hotels at which he stayed, explaining extenuating circumstances behind each expenditure and noting that the government’s accounting systems screened and approved every one of them.

Media reports, he claimed, were twisted to “create an ugly, grasping, black caricature of the man that I am ... I was not afforded the basic principle of a fair hearing.

“Instead the soundbite took the place of fairness.” Perks such as VIP lounges and limousine transfers at airports were “customary courtesies” and “in accordance with standard protocol”, while claims for generous tips and charitable donations were administrative errors, he said.

Admitting some claims appeared excessive when “viewed through this prism” of the current economic hardship in Ireland, he nonetheless argued they were all fully approved and audited.

He claimed previously that his independent role, which was “above politics”, prevented him from becoming embroiled in any political scandal.

Finally it was the Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore, demanding his resignation during an electrifying exchange in the Dáil last week, which sealed Mr O’Donoghue’s fate.

Mr O’Donoghue received a sustained burst of applause from the benches of Fianna Fáil, the ruling party, to which he will today return.

Mr O’Donoghue’s Fianna Fáil colleague Louth TD Seamus Kirk was elected as the new Speaker.

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