Clare Daly resigns from Socialist Party

Socialist Party TD Clare Daly has resigned from the party, a public statement reveals this afternoon.

The party said it "sincerely regrets that after many years in our ranks, Clare Daly TD has decided to resign from the party".

In a statement on the party's website, it said it held the view that "the fundamental reason for Clare’s resignation is that she now places more value on her political connection with Independent TD Mick Wallace than on the political positions and work of the Socialist Party".

Deputy Daly's association with Mick Wallace was clearly a bone of contention between her and the party, as this statement makes clear:

"Over the last number of months, Clare's political connection to Mick Wallace, who engaged in tax evasion and the falsification of VAT returns, has damaged her reputation but also, by implication, has potentially damaged the reputation of the Socialist Party.

"...Clare Daly offered political support to Mick Wallace despite the opposition of the Socialist Party to her acting in this way. Clare publicly vouched for Mick Wallace and his fitness for office, intervened on his behalf and consciously and consistently sat beside him in the Dáil which amounted to public political endorsement.

"Her actions and words were seized on by sections of the media to link the left in general and the Socialist Party in particular to Mick Wallace."

In a stinging rebuke, the party statement also says: "Clare has also not worked in a genuinely collective way with her colleagues in the Socialist Party. Instead, she has avoided democratic discussion as well as the democratic check and accountability of the party’s elected structures and members."