A Co Galway farmer has been convicted of assaulting Minister of State Anne Rabbitte by throwing a bag of cow dung towards her at a public meeting last year.
Joseph Baldwin (39), of Ballyaneen, Gort, had pleaded not guilty at Ennis District Court to the charge, which related to an incident involving the Fianna Fáil TD ahead of a January 4th, 2023 meeting at O’Sullivan’s Hotel in Gort about a planned biogas plant.
However, Judge Alec Gabbett found him guilty of the offence and of causing a breach of the peace. He adjourned sentencing to December to allow Baldwin engage with Probation Services and for a report on him to be completed.
Last month, Ms Rabbitte wept in the witness box as she recalled the incident. She alleged that before Baldwin threw the bag towards her, he said: “‘I am not forgetting about you, there is one for you Rabbitte’ and then he flung a bag as well.”
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After the bag fell on the ground beside her, Ms Rabbitte said someone picked it up and announced ‘it was a bag of s**t’ and that she “wanted to scream my head off because no one said that what was happening was wrong”.
Ms Rabbitte said she distracted herself at the public meeting by taking out her phone and posting a tweet stating “I can’t believe a bag of s**t has been thrown at me”. She said she later went to local gardaí to have what had happened noted.
Speaking to reporters outside the court after the verdict, Ms Rabbitte said politicians expect “the rough and tumble of debate at all times” but that a “line was crossed” in this case and the judge had acknowledged this.
“I am glad that this has been brought to a conclusion and this is the end of it as far as I am concerned,” she added.
In a prepared statement to gardaí, read out in court, Baldwin said he went to the meeting “with no intention to harm anyone”. He said he had earlier gone “down to the farmyard and put dry cow dung into ziplock bags”. He said there was “no smell or odour off the bags and I made sure that they were secure”.
Baldwin said he expected “all the TDs and councillors would be at the top table where I could leave the bags in front of them”.
He said a first bag fell two to three feet from Fine Gael TD Ciaran Cannon and he threw the second bag in the direction of Ms Rabbitte. He said this “brushed off someone else and fell on the floor near her”.
On why he decided to bring the bags, he said he had told himself “I have had enough” and that “all I was doing was making the views of the community known”.
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