{"id":51178,"date":"2025-09-08T17:16:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T17:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/51178\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T17:16:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T17:16:10","slug":"tanaiste-simon-harris-condemns-sinister-and-subversive-threats-against-his-family-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/51178\/","title":{"rendered":"T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris condemns \u2018sinister and subversive threats\u2019 against his family \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

T\u00e1naiste and Fine Gael<\/a> leader Simon Harris<\/a> has condemned \u201csinister and subversive threats\u201d against his family in the past week, adding that he had to \u201cdig pretty deep to show up here today\u201d.<\/p>\n

Garda\u00ed are investigating a series of threats<\/a> to Mr Harris and his family in recent days.<\/p>\n

Asked by journalists at the Fine Gael think-in in Mullingar this afternoon about his statement over the weekend<\/a> about the abuse and if it suggested he was contemplating his future in politics, Mr Harris sidestepped the question but said: \u201cI\u2019m here, I\u2019m doing my job \u2026 We\u2019re getting on with the work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Harris said he had experienced threats towards his children. \u201cThreats of appalling, unspeakable violence, towards very close relatives. And yesterday, a series of co-ordinated, orchestrated threats [against his home] conveyed to Garda stations. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t normal. This can\u2019t be normalised, nor can it be accepted. So what I said in my statement … the usual way you deal with this is you\u2019re meant to just kind of shut up. Pretend you didn\u2019t see the comment, say nothing and hope it moves on. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut I do see a clear pattern here that I think is deeply concerning and I think it\u2019s deeply concerning beyond me as an individual,\u201d Mr Harris said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what I said in my statement was I think we\u2019re at a moment of inflection, we have to really think that as a political system. I want to talk to my Fine Gael colleagues, my government colleagues. I\u2019ll talk to my political opponents about how we address these issues, because I don\u2019t think we take them seriously enough in this country. I\u2019m not sure if these things happened in another European country that they\u2019d just kind of be acknowledged, something that \u2013 \u2018it\u2019s terrible and it shouldn\u2019t have happened to you\u2019 \u2013 and then we just move on.” <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Garda\u00ed investigate bomb threat to Simon Harris\u2019s Wicklow home in major security operationOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Mr Harris said he would talk to and be guided by his family \u201cbecause I have two jobs\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m the leader of Fine Gael, I\u2019m the Tanaiste of the Government, and I\u2019m also a member of my family and I need to work through that. So look, leadership is about showing up, I had to dig pretty deep to show up today. But I\u2019m here, and I\u2019m getting on with the job.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TánaisteT\u00e1naiste Simon Harris with Minister for Education and Youth Helen McEntee and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Peter Burke at the Fine Gael think-in.
\nPhotograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill\/ The Irish Times <\/p>\n

Mr Harris also insisted that the budget would seek to introduce measures to help people with the cost of living. However, he said these would be on a sustainable basis, and would not repeat the one-off giveaways, such as the energy credits and the double payments of child benefit, of recent years.<\/p>\n

He cited childcare and the cost of going to college as areas in which he hoped to see permanent reductions introduced. He said that the means test for carers would be abolished \u201cover the lifetime of this government\u201d.<\/p>\n

Asked about the possibility of tax breaks in the budget for property developers, Mr Harris said the Government \u201chas to look at every possible lever that can be pulled\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said the Government had taken a number of \u201cbig\u201d and \u201cbold\u201d steps to improve the supply of housing. \u201cIf we make another decision in the weeks ahead, then that has to be it … And those who are in the business of building homes and apartments need to get on with it at that stage, and they need to know that is it.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018Vile, horrific\u2019: New threat against member of Simon Harris\u2019s family sparks investigationOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Mr Harris rubbished criticisms \u2013 including by Tesla founder Elon Musk \u2013 that Fine Gael was behaving in an anti-democratic fashion by telling its councillors not to back any other candidates.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s utter nonsense,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Fine Gael party is backing the Fine Gael candidate \u2013 hold the front page!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Harris said Mr Musk was backing a man [Conor McGregor] \u201cwho has been found liable for rape in courts … He might have say in who\u2019s president of the United States but he has not say in terms of who the President of Ireland is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"T\u00e1naiste and Fine Gael leader Simon Harris has condemned \u201csinister and subversive threats\u201d against his family in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[956,9,10,18,13,14,553,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,59,44,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-51178","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-an-garda-siochana","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-fine-gael","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-presidential-election","24":"tag-simon-harris","25":"tag-top-stories","26":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51178","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=51178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}