I was bullied out of SF
Alleged intimidating culture claims a further victim as Tipperary councillor is ninth representative to walk out
Left him ‘shrouded in abject misery’
YET another Sinn Féin councillor has quit the party after it allegedly failed to take seriously a bullying complaint that he had made.
Councillor Séamus Morris is the ninth representative to resign from the party over such claims.
In September, The Irish Mail on Sunday reported that eight councillors and one TD had either quit the party or been expelled due to reasons including bullying, an atmosphere of aggression and hostility, and efforts to defame and undermine one member.
Resignations included: Eugene Greenan, Sorcha O’Neill, Paul Maguire, Kathryn Reilly, June Murphy, Lisa Marie Sheehy, Jonathan Dowdall and TD Sandra McLellan.
Councillor Morris, 53, had been accused of ‘uncomradely behaviour’; however, he claimed that he was the victim of an internal dirty tricks campaign.
Cllr Morris said that he was disappointed that the party had dismissed his 49-page complaint.
However, in a statement released yesterday, Sinn Féin said that an exhaustive review process had been put in place at Cllr Morris’s request.
Speaking to Áine Lawlor on RTÉ’s News At One, Cllr Morris said: ‘I’m quitting Sinn Féin because I put in a serious complaint against local Sinn Féin people in Tipperary and it came to 49 pages.
‘I’m quite disappointed that the party decided to dismiss my complaint and really I’ve been trying to sort it out over the last nine months.’
Cllr Morris said the process had ‘shrouded’ him in ‘abject misery’ due to negativity and that he was now moving on.
First elected as a Sinn Féin councillor in 2004, Mr Morris said he believed things started to go wrong after the last general election, when he decided not to put his name forward as a candidate.
He added: ‘I think people saw their opportunity then either to move me to one side and maybe I became useless to them.’
He said the local Sinn Féin organisation expelled him in May, despite the Ard Comhairle saying there was no reason to expel him from the party. He said it was then that the bullying and intimidation increased, and that this included a whispering campaign, which he described as ‘very powerful’.
However, in a statement, Sinn Féin denied his claims and said it had found no evidence of a smear campaign against Cllr Morris.
It added that complaints had been made against Cllr Morris in regards to his behaviour towards