FG query Mary Lou’s SF Dowdall defence
Did party know of gang history when accepting cash, TD asks
SERIOUS questions remain about what Sinn Féin and its president Mary Lou McDonald knew about its former councillor Jonathan Dowdall after he donated €1,000 to her and became a city councillor for them, a Fine Gael TD has said.
Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill was speaking after Ms McDonald yesterday claimed said she was ‘profoundly shocked’ to learn Dowdall was involved with gangland crime.
He was sentenced to four years in prison last month for facilitating the murder of David Byrne at the Regency Hotel in Dublin in 2016 – the killing that sparked the Hutch-Kinahan gang feud.
Dowdall, who stepped down as a Sinn Féin councillor in 2014, was previously sentenced to 12 years in prison for interrogating, threatening and waterboarding a man in 2015.
Ms McDonald, who had been pictured with Dowdall during his time in the party, yesterday told reporters at Sinn Féin Ard Fheis that anyone involved in criminal behaviour should ‘have the book thrown’ at them.
‘If we’d known, he would not have been near Sinn Féin’
But she later said it would be ‘crazy’ for political parties to carry out Garda vetting. ‘Had we known that he was involved in any form of criminality – and I have to say I was profoundly shocked, as were many, many others, to discover his criminal activity – he wouldn’t have been anywhere near Sinn Féin,’ she said. ‘He wouldn’t have been anywhere near me or anybody else.
‘The courts now are dealing with this matter. Anybody involved in criminality, gangland, they [should] face the full rigour, the full rigour… throw the book at them is what I say.
‘I represent a constituency, as you know, that has borne the brunt of criminality and gangland violence and thuggery and there can be no truck with it.
‘No room for it and certainly, I am relieved, pleased to see that justice now, the wheels of justice in motion, we leave it to the courts to deal with all of that.’
Asked if she believed Dowdall’s crimes had been damaging to the party, the Sinn Féin leader said: ‘I don’t think so. I think people realise and accept, I hope, that we had no notion nor had others, of the fact that this individual was involved in criminality. None at all.
‘This person at one point was a person of very good standing in the north inner city of Dub
lin so the shock was not just ours but more widely felt. But let me just assure you, had we known, he would not have been anywhere near any of us or in the Sinn Féin party.’ However, Ms Carroll MacNeill questioned why it has taken the Sinn Féin leader almost six weeks ‘to finally answer initial questions regarding her former constituency colleague’.
The Dún Laoghaire TD said: ‘Deputy McDonald said she was “profoundly shocked” to hear of the criminality of her former colleague Dowdall. She was more than happy to take a €1,000 donation from him in 2011.
‘Several media reports regarding Dowdall and his court proceedings place him alongside criminal elements in Dublin’s north inner city since he was a teenager.
‘He took loans from them for his businesses to meet payroll costs.
‘When Dowdall was elected a city councillor in 2014, Deputy McDonald was a leading Sinn Féin TD and at the epicentre of Dublin Central constituency for the party.
‘So, in my opinion, either she and Sinn Féin didn’t have the local political network to be given the heads-up on Dowdall – or they did, and didn’t care.’
The Fine Gael TD also questioned if Ms McDonald is ‘fully up to date on all her other Sinn Féin party colleagues’.
She added: ‘Could we please know how Dowdall’s €1,000 donation to Deputy McDonald in 2011 and published on Deputy McDonald’s SIPO filings was used? Is it the only donation from Dowdall to Sinn Féin? Why the secrecy?
‘Had a Fine Gael leader taken €1,000 donation from a gangland criminal and torturer, all would want to know, right down to the last cent, what happened that money – and quite right.