Councillor removes address from website following abuse over Waterford direct provision centre 

Máiréad Tobin. Picture: Waterford City & Council

A Waterford county councillor has had to remove her home address from the council website due to abuse and intimidation she received in the wake of Lismore House Hotel being converted to a direct provision centre.

Tallow-based Máiréad Tobin said the persistent abuse she received for over three weeks, both online and by phone, left her feeling "unsafe" in her home town, where she has lived for over 20 years.

Ms Tobin said in one instance an unknown caller told her it would be "very easy to get rid of you".

However, she interpreted the threat as a reference to the next local elections and did not report it to gardaí.

"But I became very conscious of my surroundings. I changed my movements and made some other personal alterations", she told WLR's Déise Today programme.

The Fianna Fáil councillor, who was co-opted onto the council last October following the sudden passing of her father James, said she now interacts "very cautiously" with people she does not know.

Earlier, Ms Tobin told a meeting of Dungarvan-Lismore municipal district council that she declined to attend a street protest in Lismore as she would not have her nine year-old child "witness the abuse his mother had been receiving".

She recalled being brought up where her father's 'open door' policy meant constituents would call in person if needing help.

"Now I find myself in a position where I'm not comfortable in operating that same policy," she said. "But it will not stop me from doing my job."

Local councillors, across all parties, have heavily criticised the Government's failure to pre-inform them of Cork-based company MCHT's plans for the hotel.

Fine Gael Cllr Damien Geoghegan said the absence of information meant that public representatives were unable to reassure constituents following "a week of miscommunication, misinformation and upset put out in the Lismore community”.

He warned it is "now difficult to relay information to the public because you could be made liars of, very, very quickly”.

Sinn Féin Cllr Conor McGuinness said the Government's approach created "an information vacuum in which fear and uncertainty has been allowed to spread”.

Labour Cllr Thomas Phelan accused the Government of adopting “an almost patronising lack of trust in communities” and said locals would react sympathetically and with goodwill if kept informed.