‘Women see what I went through and they decide not to run’
Almost three years after our shocking WhatsApp revelations, Deputy Brian Leddin is still failing to take accountability for his role in group
THE Green Party candidate for Limerick Mayor should stop using a previous relationship with one of his rivals as a reason not to discuss his role in a ‘vile’ WhatsApp group, the rival targeted by the group has said.
Councillor Elisa O’Donovan, running against Deputy Brian Leddin in the forthcoming Limerick Mayoral elections, also believes Mr Leddin’s current attitude to the scandal showed ‘no lessons had been learned’.
The 2019 WhatsApp episode saw a WhatsApp group set up by Mr Leddin referring to Cllr O’Donovan as a ‘c***’ as reported by the Irish Mail on Sunday in September 2021.
The shocking WhatsApp group also at one point saw a photo of another female figure, with the word ‘c***’ superimposed across her face, temporarily adopted as the group’s icon.
Mr Leddin, who is the Chair of the Oireachtas
‘If I do something mean or horrible, I apologise’
Climate Committee, never intervened to call out this behaviour. And in one instance he posted three laughing emojis within a minute of Cllr O’Donovan being labelled a ‘c***’.
Mr Leddin has never officially explained these laughing emojis on the record, although he has had spindoctors provide off-the-record briefings about the timing and context of the exchange in question.
Speaking this week Cllr O’Donovan pointed out that Mr Leddin, in campaign interviews, has declined to address the controversy saying it was a personal matter since he had once been in a relationship with her.
‘So now it’s been put down to some scorned ex or something like that, it’s just horrible. Like, I don’t know what else to say.
‘He’s moved on… so now it’s not a legal issue. It’s a personal private matter. But yet, he’s happy to talk about that to everyone.’
‘If I do something wrong, or I do something mean or horrible to someone, I apologise. I’d say, “Look, I apologise” – but here there was just no accountability,’ Cllr O’Donovan told the Irish Mail on Sunday.
‘Just man up and apologise. You and your friends said some really despicable, derogatory, sexist, misogynistic, nasty things about a political rival. I don’t know any of the other people in that group and they have said some really nasty, awful things...’
After the MoS first published the messages Deputy Leddin issued a statement saying he regretted his failure to intervene when others posed offensive material.
‘On one occasion, I made an offthe-cuff comment in the group about Elisa O’Donovan who I had been in a personal relationship with more than two years earlier, before either of us had entered politics. I regret my comment. It was inappropriate and I have apologised to her for it,’ he added. This appears to be a reference to a text message that he sent Cllr O’Donovan in March 2021 where he references The
Irish Examiner writing a story on the issue.
He wrote: ‘I have given a statement to the journalist in which I apologise for the remark, but I wanted to be able to do so in person as well.’ That apology never appeared because the story never ran.
Responding to his text, Cllr O’Donovan replied: ‘Any apology from you is as empty and meaningless as your politics’.
Subsequently, Cllr O’Donovan and Deputy Leddin met by accident in Limerick but at no stage, then or after, did he offer an apology – and he has never apologised at all to the other woman targeted.
‘He sent me a text to say that something was going to be published, and that he was sorry. There was no follow up. That’s all he ever said,’ Cllr O’Donovan told the MoS.
‘He was just sorry that his poor behaviour was caught out. And he was just doing everything to try to save his reputation.’
‘He should have just apologised and said, “You know, I’ve learned from this behaviour. I would never use that language about someone again and I would call it out if I see that sort of language towards women in politics in the future.”
‘And that would have been the whole thing left behind.’
At the time the controversy divided the Green Party with many senior figures breaking ranks to criticise the party’s decision not to sanction Mr Leddin.
Cllr O’Donovan added that the kind of behaviour that she faced – and the Green Party’s response – had stopped other women from
‘There’s been no change, which is frustrating’
entering politics. ‘Looking back on the way the whole WhatsApp thing was handled at the time by the Green Party leader, there has been no change since then you know, which is the frustrating thing,’ she said.
In the past, both Mr Leddin and his party leader, Eamon Ryan, shut down public questions by saying they were precluded from speaking for legal reasons.
‘I remember at the time we were told they can’t comment anymore. It’s a legal issue. And that was untrue,’ Cllr O’Donovan added.
‘Eamon Ryan said that he couldn’t comment on it, because there’s
legal issues in both directions and Eamon Ryan referred to me as “that woman” which was really derogatory once again.’
Cllr O’Donovan added; ‘They were always just muddying the waters, trying to suggest that there was more to the story that people didn’t know about, which was always untrue.’
Cllr O’Donovan said she does not regret speaking publicly about the abuse she was targeted with.
‘I guess the reason that I spoke up about it at the time was because I wanted things to change for other women coming into politics.
‘It was a really important story and I thought we could get people talking about the treatment that women experience, not just in politics, but in public life [in general].
‘I just got contacted by so many people at that time – I still do – who completely understood my experience during that time.’
But several years later, she now feels frustrated that little appears to have changed.
‘The behaviour of a lot of these people over the last five years has stopped women from running and I can see that in my own area.
‘It’s very difficult – ask any politician and they’ll say it – it’s very difficult to get women to run,’ she said.
‘In my own area of Limerick City West, we only have four women out of 19 candidates running. And I’m not surprised... they see what’s happened to me over the last five years. Why would they bring that on themselves?
‘There’s no justice at all. There’s no respect and that’s all we want – we want a level playing field, I just want to be treated the same as everyone else.
‘Even though I’m glad it was made public, because I think people need to see what happened,
‘I want to move on with my life as much as I can’
it was a very distressing and upsetting time in my life.
‘And, you know, I guess I do want to move on with my life as much as I can.’
Mr Leddin did not respond to messages from the MoS sent to his Gmail address, his Green Party email, his Oireachtas questions nor a text message to his phone; he also did not return a phone call.
The Green’s Deputy Government Press Secretary Aiden Corkery, who is paid a taxpayer-funded salary of between €98,000 and €122,000, was also contacted and he initially confirmed that Deputy Leddin was aware of the request and would be responding to it.
Yesterday morning Deputy Leddin’s attitude appears to have changed, and the MoS were told that Deputy Leddin would not be responding to our questions published elsewhere on this page.
michaelofarrell@protonmail.com