Irish Examiner view: Abuse of politicians cannot be tolerated

If the person who flung excrement at Anne Rabbitte and Ciarán Cannon is not found and punished, others of a similar disposition may decide this is an example worth following

Those responsible for the disgusting act where bags of excrement were flung at Anne Rabbitte and Ciarán Cannon must be held to account. Picture: Moya Nolan

Yesterday, Anne Rabbitte, minister of state with responsibility for disability, and TD Ciarán Cannon revealed that bags of excrement were flung at them while attending a public event in Gort in Co Galway on Wednesday evening.

It need hardly be said that such behaviour defies comprehension and must be condemned in the strongest terms. There is a Garda investigation under way and those responsible need to be held to account. A disgusting act such as this cannot be allowed to pass without the appropriate punishment.

Cannon was relatively sanguine on social media about the matter, stating: “All part of the job you might say, but I can understand why fewer people want this job.”

However, having bags of excrement flung at you should never be accepted as part of the job of a public representative, though Cannon’s secondary point, about the attractiveness of politics as a career in these circumstances, is on the money.

There is also the matter of precedent which should be borne in mind. If the person who flung excrement at Rabbitte and Cannon is not found and punished, others of a similar disposition may decide this is an example worth following.

Swift action is needed here because, without being alarmist, the implicit encouragement of attacking public representatives cannot be tolerated for an instant. 

Dehumanisation of politicians

We have seen in England, in the case of the murdered MP Jo Cox, how the degradation of discourse and dehumanisation of politicians can ultimately lead to fatal consequences.

Incidents such as the one in Gort could not be further removed from the operation of any working democracy. But it is important that any slide, however imperceptible, towards such actions becoming even vaguely acceptable is arrested immediately.

That slide is not a matter of the imagination. Only last week we learned that harassment of TD Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has led to Garda intervention — this coming just two months after another man was given a suspended one-year sentence for harassing the same TD.

Public representatives are entitled to the same level of safety as anyone else. Any actions threatening to compromise that safety cannot be accepted.