Higgins: ‘I was told I would be hatcheted in the face’

Labour senator and European parliament candidate Lorraine Higgins has said she received death threats in the election campaign.

The lawyer also said that she had been shocked by the level of abuse she received in recent weeks as she campaigned to win a seat in North-West-Midlands for Labour.

She said she had reported to gardaí a death threat in which a man threatened to hack her to death and used very abusive language in a posting on her Facebook page.

One comment referred to her “a scummy bitch cow”.

The man also said he would “fuckin murder her in the face with a hacksaw”.

The Galway woman said she did not get the sense that things were as bad for Labour when she was out in the 15 counties in the constituency.

Concerns about water charges and medical cards were raised with her, she said, but ultimately voters had decided to give her party a kicking on polling day. She said that other candidates had mounted campaigns on water charges and medical cards.

“Sinn Féin were very, very vocal on this,” said Ms Higgins. “I know that from people I met on the street that were members of supporters of Sinn Féin. I know from my Facebook page and the level of abuse I’ve taken over the last number of weeks, actually culminated in a death threat last Friday.

“This is the level of opposition tactics that I think is regretful. Smear campaigns. I’ve reported it to the gardaí. I was told that I was going to be hatcheted in the face as a way of murdering me. I could trace the person who said it based on his Facebook profile and that’s now with the gardaí.

“He certainly had links to a political party or was a supporter of one based on his friends on Facebook.”

She also said that, following a debate on RTÉ’s Prime Time she received “the most horrendous abuse” on social networking websites. It was no way for people to exercise opinions, she said.

“It started off a number of weeks ago and then it certainly intensified in the last week of my campaign,” said Ms Higgins.

She said “it was clear” those who abused her online were linked to Independents and Sinn Féin, and that there was enough material there to bring the person who made the threat to court.

Responding to Ms Higgins’s comments, newly elected Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan said she “absolutely” condemned anybody who made threats on Facebook and that the Labour senator had done the right thing in going to gardaí.

She said the social media world was a “nasty place” and there were some “very nasty people” out there.