Mary Lou McDonald came out swinging with Dáil statement — but questions will continue
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald was criticised for her 'glowing' December statement regarding former senator Niall Ó Donnghaile. File Picture: PA.
There is a dead giveaway in political and media life that something has become a 'political football', and that is when accusations of 'using something as a political football' are extended and denied.
In fairness to Children's Minister Roderic O'Gorman, when he said that he would not make a Dáil debate entitled Statements on Child Protection a political football, he was as good as his word, opening a session that was highly anticipated with a technical explanation of the work of Tusla and the Government's work on child protection. He told the Dáil that the issue would not be used purely to kick Sinn Féin, as if it had been planned before last Thursday.
Justice Minister Helen McEntee followed suit. Mostly. In the last line of her four-minute speech, it was Ms McEntee who flipped the switch on proceedings, saying that revelations about Sinn Féin posed serious questions, paving the way for Anne Rabbitte, who accused the party of "taking matters into its own hands and ignoring legal processes, to do away with transparency and operate in a culture of secrecy and then get offended when people ask for clarity regarding its paedophile press officer".
That left the door open for backbenchers Colm Brophy and Ciaran Cannon, with the latter using the refrain that Sinn Féin's only priority is to "protect the party". It was not the fire and brimstone one might have imagined, particularly given the Government parties' desire to add the statements to the order paper.
In truth, most had been waiting for one person's contribution - Mary Lou McDonald. Ms McDonald, we had been told earlier in the day, was set to make a "comprehensive" statement about all four controversies swirling around the party: the Michael McMonagle affair, the departures of TDs Patricia Ryan and Brian Stanley, and the case of a party member who had resigned because of inappropriate texts they had sent to a 17-year-old boy. Fever pitch was reached when it was rumoured that Ms McDonald would, under Dáil privilege, name the person who had thus far not been identified.
As it transpired, in the moments before the session kicked off, former senator Niall Ó Donnghaile had identified himself in a statement to media, saying that he had "in consultation with the party" accepted that his behaviour warranted stepping down. While it ensured Ms McDonald did not have to remove that particular plaster, it did pose questions immediately about what the party leader knew and why her statement, when he left, was unambiguous in painting a picture of it being purely on health grounds that he was departing.
In short order, a copy of the party leader's December statement, referred to as "glowing" by Holly Cairns of the Social Democrats, was being text and tweeted around.
When Ms McDonald did rise to her feet, she did so under the glare of Mairia Cahill, who alleged to police in 2010 that she had been raped by an IRA member in the late 1990s and said she was later subjected to an internal IRA “kangaroo court” investigation. Former Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald, whose time in ministerial office ended under threat of a motion of no-confidence from Sinn Féin over the handling of the Maurice McCabe affair for which she was later cleared, sat in the public gallery directly above and opposite.
Ms McDonald entered the Dáil chamber with the backing of most of her TDs - Eoin Ó Broin, David Cullinane and Louise Reilly were among the small few not present - as she came out swinging, saying that Sinn Féin had handled all of the cases well before rounding on the Government's "hypocrisy" but failing to offer examples.
As Labour's Ivana Bacik began her contribution, the Sinn Féin leader left to do a television interview with RTÉ, but with questions still swirling.
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