It follows last week\u2019s revelation that Ms Connolly employed a woman in 2019 who was previously convicted of possessing a weapon and ammunition while the Galway TD was working on an Irish language Oireachtas Committee.<\/p>\n
The convicted woman, Ursula N\u00ed Shionn\u00e1in, was arrested in 2012 alongside three other individuals \u2013 including a convicted IRA member \u2013 outside the house of an arms dealer in Co Offaly.<\/p>\n
Ms Connolly has since defended her decision to hire Ms N\u00ed Shionn\u00e1in who, she claims, had \u201cabsolutely rehabilitated\u201d during her four-and-a-half years spent in prison.<\/p>\n
“I was curious to see this woman and her background and what she had achieved in prison,\u201d she told The Hard Shoulder programme on Newstalk.<\/p>\n
“I made a decision to give her work based on her rehabilitation, and I think it’s really important that I keep saying this. I had absolutely no role with anything to do with the vetting of this woman.<\/p>\n
“Where are we going as a society if we’re going to punish them again and again?\u201d<\/p>\n
She said that the traction gained by the story over recent days has been designed so as to \u201cdo me damage\u201d, in spite of Ms N\u00ed Shionn\u00e1in\u2019s rehabilitation.<\/p>\n
Ms Connolly said she did not ask Ms N\u00ed Shionn\u00e1in about her reasons for attempting to acquire weaponry due to hiring her \u201cbased on her rehabilitation\u201d alone.<\/p>\n
The presidential candidate added that her decision to hire her was \u201cbased on suitability of the person\u201d, to which host Kieran Cuddihy asked whether Ms Connolly would hire a convicted rapist in the \u00c1ras who was completely suitable for the role.<\/p>\n
“I’d have to think about that,” she said. <\/p>\n
“As a woman, I react, so obviously I’d have to think about that. Of course, I would have to reflect.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also refused to commit whether or not, as president, she would sign off on legislation to dismantle the Triple Lock, the mechanism by which Ireland sends peacekeepers to conflict zones.<\/p>\n
The deployment must receive initial approval from the Cabinet and D\u00e1il before being voted on by the UN Security Council which includes members such as Russia and China who possess veto power.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019d have to come back to you about my feelings in relation to that,\u201d Ms Connolly said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody is in any doubt as to where I would stand in relation to our neutrality and the Triple Lock.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, she insisted that there must be a referendum on any decisions to change the terms of Ireland\u2019s neutrality.<\/p>\n
“Neutrality is not in our Constitution,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Only two people remain in the race for the \u00c1ras following the decision by Fianna F\u00e1il candidate and ex-Dublin football manager Jim Gavin to withdraw after damaging revelations last weekend that he failed to refund overpaid rent to a tenant living in his property in 2009.<\/p>\n
Heather Humphreys of Fine Gael remains Ms Connolly\u2019s only rival, though Mr Gavin\u2019s name will still appear on the October 24 ballot paper, the Electoral Commission has confirmed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It follows last week\u2019s revelation that Ms Connolly employed a woman in 2019 who was previously convicted of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,1921,381,4767,18,13,14,4771,6,555,19,9619,17,19487,125,11,12,15,16,5,24321,59,550,7,8,11829],"class_list":{"0":"post-109994","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-catherine-connolly","11":"tag-china","12":"tag-dail-eireann","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-featured-news","15":"tag-featurednews","16":"tag-fianna-fail","17":"tag-headlines","18":"tag-heather-humphreys","19":"tag-ie","20":"tag-ira","21":"tag-ireland","22":"tag-jim-gavin","23":"tag-keith-kelly","24":"tag-latest-news","25":"tag-latestnews","26":"tag-main-news","27":"tag-mainnews","28":"tag-news","29":"tag-newstalk","30":"tag-presidential-election","31":"tag-russia","32":"tag-top-stories","33":"tag-topstories","34":"tag-triple-lock"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}