Sinn Féin has maintained that its records show the young person at the centre of the Niall Ó Donnghaile controversy was 17 when he received inappropriate messages from its former Senator.
Fine Gael TD Ciarán Cannon and former Labour Senator Maíríá Cahill have publicly said, including on the floor of the Dáil, that the individual was in fact 16 at the time. This would run contrary to what Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald informed the house of on Tuesday during statements on child protection, in which she also confirmed that Mr Ó Donnghaile had resigned after sending the messages.
She said the matter “relates to an incident where a Sinn Féin representative sent inappropriate text messages to a 17-year-old”.
Asked to confirm the person was 17 at the time communications were sent, a Sinn Féin spokesman said: “Our party records confirm he was 17 years of age at the time of the incident. It was because he was a minor that we referred the matter to the PSNI and Social Services.”
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Sinn Féin was asked if it was happy that its records were correct, and whether it would make any efforts to verify the accuracy of its records.
A Sinn Féin spokesman said: “We stand over our records, the person involved submitted these details,” adding that the person had requested that their privacy be respected and no action taken that would reveal the identity of the person.
The PSNI has said safeguarding assessments and engagement with other statutory bodies were conducted and no formal complaint was received.
Ms McDonald told the Dáil there was no finding of illegality and no criminal charges were pursued, but that Mr Ó Donnghaile’s actions were not acceptable to Sinn Féin. This was communicated to him at a meeting on October 5th last year, and he said he would resign from both the Seanad and the party.
Elsewhere. the party confirmed the teenager had discussed the issue with Ógra Shinn Féin, it youth wing, before last September.
Mr Ó Donnghaile was suspended from the party last September over the matter, but did not resign from the Seanad until late December, at which point leader Ms McDonald praised his work but did not divulge what had transpired.
In the Dáil this week Ms McDonald said that a “party councillor” received a complaint last September that an inappropriate message had been sent by Mr Ó Donnghaile to a 17-year-old male party member.
Sources have told The Irish Times the young person revealed the existence of the texts in the months previous.
A Sinn Féin spokesman said “the young person did discuss this issue with some of his peers in Ógra” and did so “in the weeks prior to 11th of September when he contacted the party and the matter was referred to the PSNI.
“When the young person contacted Sinn Féin he was advised to retain all messages on his phone as they would be required by the PSNI. We then referred the matter to the PSNI and Social Services. The family confirmed to the party that the messages had been shown to the PSNI as part of their investigation.”
There have also been questions around why Sinn Féin did not refer the matter to the Garda as Mr Ó Donnghaile spent three days a week in the Seanad. “The messages were sent to a young person in the North so it had to be reported to the PSNI and Social Services, who jointly investigated the matter,” the spokesman said.
Separately, Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns has said Ms McDonald should retract a statement she made about Mr Ó Donnghaile, in which she praised his work when he stepped down in December last year.
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