... but Maureen defends her support for dissidents
INDEPENDENT TD Maureen O’Sullivan who was this week criticised for writing a letter of support for Real IRA man Donal Ó Coisdealbha has involved herself in the cases of dissident republicans before.
Ó Coisdealbha was jailed this week for IRA membership. He was caught with explosive devices before the visit of Prince Charles to Ireland last year.
Ms O’Sullivan wrote to the courts expressing dismay at the length of time the young man spent in custody after being arrested.
This was not the first time she has intervened in a dissident republican’s court proceedings. In 2015, Ms O’Sullivan and three other TDs attended the hearing of Gary Donnelly, a dissident convicted of causing criminal damage by daubing an antiinternment slogan on Derry’s city walls.
She also attended the hearing of Real IRA gun runner Michael Campbell in Lithuania in 2013. He was caught on video plotting to plant a bomb in London. The independent TD told the MoS this week that there had been ‘a lot of grey areas’ about the Campbell case. Ms O’Sullivan also lent her support to the family of jailed dissident republican Michael McKevitt during his cancer fight. ‘We signed the letter because he was going for treatment. He was due to be released in a couple of months,’ she said. Asked if she was concerned she might appear be condoning violence, she replied: ‘It’s nothing to do with their ideology. ‘We’ve made that very clear.’