A former Fianna F\u00e1il minister has leapt to the defence of presidential candidate Catherine Connolly amid criticism from the Taoiseach of her decision to hire a woman who had been jailed for firearms offences.<\/p>\n
Ms Connolly hired Ursula N\u00ed Shionnain in 2018 after her release from prison because she was \u201ca person who had rehabilitated herself\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ms N\u00ed Shionn\u00e1in had been convicted by the Special Criminal Court in February 2014 and given a six-year sentence for firearms offences, of which she served almost four-and-a-half years.<\/p>\n
She was a member of the dissident socialist republican group \u00c9ir\u00edg\u00ed.<\/p>\n
The court heard that she was travelling in a stolen van in 2012 with a co-accused and one of the weapons discovered in the vehicle was a pistol used in a murder ten years earlier.<\/p>\n
There was no suggestion that Ms N\u00ed Shionn\u00e1in was linked to the murder.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin said Ms Connolly’s decision to employ Ms N\u00ed Shionnain raised “serious questions” about her judgement, but former Fianna F\u00e1il TD Eamon \u00d3 Cu\u00edv has defended Ms Connolly and confirmed he had recommended the hiring of Ms N\u00ed Shionnain.<\/p>\n
Mr \u00d3 Cu\u00edv, a former Fianna F\u00e1il deputy leader, is known for regularly visiting prisons, particularly dealing with Republican prisoners.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Catherine showed a lack of judgement, I did equally, because she asked me about her and I said that I was personally satisfied that she (Ms N\u00ed Shionnain) had moved on,\u201d Mr \u00d3 Cu\u00edv said.<\/p>\n
Mr \u00d3 Cu\u00edv said Mr Martin was \u201centitled to his view\u201d but he said that Ms N\u00ed Shionn\u00e1in was an example of rehabilitation.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere\u2019s a person who was let out of prison and she got on with her life, finished a PhD, so she\u2019s now Dr Ursula N\u00ed Shionn\u00e1in,\u201d Mr \u00d3 Cu\u00edv said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s held down a number of jobs and she\u2019s getting on with her life in a positive way.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo where is the lack of judgement? Because she has proven herself to those who had faith in her.”<\/p>\n
Ms Connolly denied she had been prevented from hiring Ms N\u00ed Shionn\u00e1in by garda\u00ed, saying that she had been employed for six months in Leinster House before “leaving of her own volition”.<\/p>\n
She said Ms N\u00ed Shionn\u00e1in had worked in Leinster House but left after six months.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At this stage, the vetting process had not been completed and she did not have a permanent pass to enter Leinster House.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was absolutely perfect for the job, and I took her on,\u201d Ms Connolly said. \u201cIt was for three days, and over the period of time, from day one, she filled out an application form, explained everything.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe clearance process took some time, and in the end, she left of her own volition. She was there for almost six months, less than six months.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n I\u2019ve had no contact with the garda\u00ed in relation to this matter. Absolutely none.\n <\/p>\n
\u201cThis woman filled out her application form from day one, declared everything and then there’s a process, and that process went on for quite some time. It’s not unusual. I’ve spoken to other people, and sometimes the process goes on for a year or two years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this case, it went on and I checked I have emails that asked, \u2018Where’s the process at? It’s going on for a very long time\u2019. There was no outcome.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“The process just went on and on, and in the end, the person left, and my contact was simply with the superintendent, or whoever the relevant person is. My only intervention was to say, \u2018When is the process going to be completed?\u2019 It was very inconvenient.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Speaking in Denmark on Thursday morning, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin described the hiring of N\u00ed Shionnain as \u201cvery serious\u201d.<\/p>\n
“It would indicate a very serious lack of judgment, and I think Catherine Connolly needs to clarify that in its entirety and be fully transparent in respect of it.”<\/p>\n
Speaking in Trim, Fine Gael\u2019s presidential candidate Heather Humphreys described the controversy as a \u201cserious issue\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis person was a member of \u00c9irig\u00cd, that is the organisation that tried to dismantle the Good Friday Agreement. She was obviously working in the Houses of the Oireachtas for six months,\u201d Ms Humphreys said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy concern here, and I think Catherine does need to explain this, is how come she had access to the Oireachtas without Garda clearance.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pressed if the vetting issue was not a matter for the Garda\u00ed, Ms Humphreys said it was a matter for the employer.<\/p>\n
Asked about the possibility of rehabilitation, as Ms N\u00ed Shionn\u00e1in had served her prison sentence, Ms Humphreys said: \u201cAccess to the Oireachtas is access to all of the elected members of this country. Whether its TDs or whether its senators, there are rules in place there and they\u2019re very clearly set down the rules and you have to abide by the rules.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, people do deserve a second chance absolutely. I\u2019ve given many people a second chance myself and I understand that.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut this was a serious crime, like this was possession of firearms and she was found guilty in the Special Criminal Court.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sinn F\u00e9in leader Mary Lou McDonald backed Ms Connolly, saying that she had followed the proper procedures when employing the woman.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the party’s launch of its alternative Budget in Dublin this afternoon, Ms McDonald said that she had not discussed the issue with Ms Connolly, but that they will be in contact on “many important issues” in the coming days.<\/p>\n
Ms McDonald said that the case was one of rehabilitation and that she was working on the assumption that the woman who had been employed by Ms Connolly was now a supporter of the peace process and that this was “a good thing”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Fianna F\u00e1il minister has leapt to the defence of presidential candidate Catherine Connolly amid criticism from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,59,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-99875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-presidential-election","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99875","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=99875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}