Kelly seeks probe into Twitter message

LABOUR MEP Alan Kelly has asked Gardaí to investigate how his official account on Twitter might have been hacked after it sent out a deeply offensive anti-Traveller message.

Last month, the Irish Examiner revealed the Ireland South representative’s party account on the popular social networking site had released a derogatory message about the Travelling community. The comment, which read “Just got stopped by a pikey, scuse me, sir, ya haven’t seen a black mare and a white pony go by ave ya? Err no, sorry” and sent on a Sunday evening, led to a string of complaints from other Twitter users, many of whom were Mr Kelly’s then 198 online “followers”.

The note was taken down within an hour, with the politician posting a second message to say his site had been “compromised”.