Thursday, 28 Mar 2024

Hugh O'Connell: 'Why Senator's offensive 'Traveller' and 'dwarf' tweets are a problem for her and Fianna Fáil'

Senator and Dáil by-election candidate Lorraine Clifford-Lee is Fianna Fáil’s justice, equality, children and youth affairs spokeswoman in the Seanad. 

But views she expressed on Twitter in 2011 and 2012 raise major questions about her suitability for that role and her bid for a Dáil seat in Dublin Fingal in the by-election on November 29.

Ms Clifford-Lee has apologised for tweets where she used the words “knacker” and “Traveller” in a derogatory manner. She also said Kim Kardashian had a “fat arse” and told of how a “black Brazilian dwarf with ginger hair” sat beside her on a bus. Many of the posts date back to 2011 and 2012 and were made before she was an elected politician. She was an active Local Area Representative for Fianna Fáil in the run-up to a failed local election bid in 2014.

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While the Dáil hopeful acknowledges the tweets were wrong and has apologised, she says they were from before she was involved in electoral politics, and that they have been “taken out of context” by some people for “their own right-wing agenda” as part of a “personal smear campaign”.

But there is no context in which the word “knacker” is appropriate. It’s the sort of deeply inappropriate and offensive word that has sparked criticism from her political opponents this morning.

READ MORE:
Senator apologises for ‘Traveller’ and ‘dwarf’ tweets but claims she is victim of smear campaign

Sinn Féin’s Fingal TD Louise O’Reilly told independent.ie: “It appears that Senator Clifford-Lee is not sorry, but she’s sorry that she is caught. There is no context required because the context is in the tweets themselves.

“She wasn’t a young woman, she was a grown woman when she made those remarks, she committed them to social media, she’s left them there, she’s mounted a pathetic defence at this stage.

“She needs to come out herself and clarify them because Fingal is a very diverse constituency with people from any backgrounds, all of whom are entitled to have a representative that’s going to stand up for all of them.

“It is not simply a campaign run over what you say over the course of three weeks, but it’s about who you are and what you stand for over the course of your life. It’s not simply: ‘I didn’t say that during this campaign.’”

Ms Clifford-Lee’s party colleague in Fingal, TD Darragh O’Brien, told RTÉ Radio: “The language used was obviously wrong and to be fair Lorraine has said the language she used was wrong and she has apologised for that.”

Mr O’Brien pointed out repeatedly they were said a number of years ago and would not be drawn on whether Ms Clifford-Lee should remain as a Fianna Fáil candidate in a constituency where the party is hotly-tipped to take a seat later this month.

This latest controversy creates another political headache for Micheál Martin, coming just weeks after the vote-gate scandal.

On that occasion the Fianna Fáil leader was swift and decisive in sacking two of his TDs from the frontbench. What action will he take here, if any?

It is worth nothing that in the past week in the UK a number of general election candidates have resigned over historic comments and posts on social media.

Antony Calvert, a Tory candidate in Wakefield, has stepped down after he said claims of food poverty were “ludicrous” and described feminist issues as “wholly and utterly irrelevant”.

His resignation came days after another Tory hopeful, Nick Conrad, stood down over remarks he made several years ago in a conversation about rape that women should “keep their knickers on”.

A Labour candidate in Essex, Gideon Bull resigned after it emerged he had used the word “Shylock” during a private meeting. Labour is also investigating claims one of its shadow cabinet members sang “Hey Jews” to tune of the The Beatles’ song Hey Jude on a coach trip last year. Dan Carden, the shadow international development secretary, denies the claim.

Fianna Fáil has said nothing as yet about what, if any, disciplinary action it will take against Ms Clifford-Lee. Ms Clifford-Lee did not respond immediately to a request for comment to further clarify her remarks.

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