TDs: we fear for our safety after verdict on Jobstown
Fears grow of attacks on politicians after verdict on Jobstown
SENIOR politicians have warned of their growing fears for the safety of elected representatives in the wake of the Jobstown affair.
As hard-left TD Paul Murphy was yesterday celebrating his acquittal on false imprisonment charges, other deputies said the result represented a ‘threat to democracy’.
‘People think they can behave as they like towards politicians,’ said Disabilities Minister Finian McGrath – who, like Mr Murphy, is a TD for an inner-city constituency. ‘We are all people, and we are just trying to do our best for other people. Sections of the public have become very difficult and hostile.
‘Some of the stuff we are exposed to is just not acceptable.’
Independent TD Mr McGrath, while accepting the jury’s decision to acquit all six men charged over the Jobstown protest, said that what happened to former tánaiste Joan Burton and her adviser Karen O’Connell was unacceptable.
‘I do feel very uncomfortable that two women were trapped in a car for three hours,’ he said. ‘Bullying and intimidation is never acceptable. There is a little fascist element, I would call it.’
Mr McGrath added: ‘I had an incident when out canvassing only last week. A householder became abusive and aggressive with my canvassers and started swinging his elbows. I had to go over and ask him to calm down.
‘I have had people put their face right up to my own, yelling at me, nose to nose. And if you accidentally happened to touch them, of course, then they would cry assault and roll around on the ground.
‘It is worrying, it is intimidation, and it is just not acceptable.’
Fianna Fáil TD Willie O’Dea, a former Minister of State at the Department of Justice, said the effect of the Jobstown verdict will be to make politicians’ jobs more difficult in the future.
Mr O’Dea told the Irish Daily Mail that deputies could privately fear for their safety in future.
‘It would create apprehension in any politician who in the future would be a member of a Government that is trying to implement an unpopular policy,’ he said.
‘You could see this all over again with bin charges,’ Mr O’Dea added, warning that the coarsening of public discourse had been under way for many years now, with politicians first being ‘viciously’ abused on social media and this ‘translating to the street’. Mr O’Dea continued: ‘If people are saying online that somebody should get a wallop, it is definitely an encouragement for people who might suddenly see that person in front of them. It is now getting to the stage of being a threat to democracy.’
A number of deputies to whom the Mail spoke yesterday expressed the same fears as Minister McGrath and Mr O’Dea. Female deputies were especially reluctant to comment on the record, although one said: ‘I’m often enough nearly in fear of my life, to be honest. I need my people close around me.’
Several female politicians have been threatened with vile comments, and even stalked. One politician had his car jumped upon during water protests, and there has been a rise in phone threats.
The outpouring of concern from politicians comes after six men were yesterday cleared of falsely imprisoning Ms Burton and Ms O’Connell in Jobstown, Tallaght, Dublin, on November 15, 2014.
The trial heard the two women were attending a graduation ceremony when an anti-water charge protest broke out around them.
Eggs and water balloons were thrown at the then Labour leader and she was advised by gardaí to leave in an unmarked Garda car for her safety. However, their car was surrounded by protesters, including the accused men. Video footage showed a large crowd surrounding the vehicle and chanting slogans. The women were trapped in the car for about an hour before being moved to a Garda jeep.
Ms Burton said she felt she was ‘running for her life’ when she eventually got out of the vehicle.
The women later ran to waiting Garda cars and left the area. Lawyers for the six accused men argued they hadn’t been involved in any violence and were only interested in staging a peaceful protest.
Deputy Murphy yesterday hailed the verdict as a ‘victory’ for the Jobstown Not Guilty campaign and said the right to protest had been ‘vindicated’.
‘These seven people [including another accused man against whom the charges were dropped] have had this hanging over them for over two years and have spent 11 weeks in court,’ said the Solidarity TD. ‘They are now vindicated and walk out of court proven to be protesters rather than the kidnappers Joan Burton and the Gardaí said they were. We want to deeply thank the jury.’
And responding last night to a question on RTÉ’s Prime Time about Ms Burton claiming she felt ‘physically terrified’ during the protest, Mr Murphy replied: ‘So water balloons are not acceptable, verbal abuse is not acceptable... These are not things I was accused of, or any of my co-accused were accused of.’
‘There is a little fascist element’ ‘I’m often nearly in fear of my life’