Online threats forced TD to contact gardaí

Threats to the safety of politicians have led An Garda Síochána to organised briefings for Oireachtas members on how to improve their security both at home and in there workplaces – and Westmeath’s three TDs have confirmed that abuse is an ongoing feature of their lives.

“If you were thinking about it every night going to bed, you probably wouldn’t sleep,” Deputy Peter Burke said this week, while Deputy Robert Troy says he has to consciously switch off from social media over it sometimes.

For Deputy Sorca Clarke, things became so sinister recently that she was forced to report her fears to gardaí.

The problem of abusive text messages began in early January. At the start they were more “nuisance” than threatening she says, but the tone gradually changed.

Despite that, she wasn’t overly concerned: receiving abusive and threatening phone calls and messages is an occupational hazard for politicians in the digital age.

Her attitude changed though, after she received a couple of messages whose threatening tone exceeded anything that had gone before.

“I had to have a conversation with my husband because they were threatening to kick in the door of our house. There was something about being ‘pulled limb from limb’. I have a son in secondary school and I found myself worrying for his safety.

“There was a line in the text message that said something like ‘It makes no difference how much security you have’. The world and his mother knows [my husband] runs a security business; it did make me wonder what the person was hinting at.”

A worrying situation turned even more sinister last week, sinister enough for Deputy Clarke to contact the gardaí.

“I don’t believe in blocking phone numbers and the number was saved into the phone. That number rang my office yesterday [Tuesday, February 15] and made threatening statements to my staff members, which we relayed to the gardaí. “This meant that we had to take time out of our day – time that would have been much better spent actually doing the job – I was elected to do rather than sitting with a guard who has much more important things to do than following up on this type of shenanigans.

“They contacted the individual involved and made it clear it needed to stop and was not tolerable and if it didn’t stop, further action will be taken.

“After my office being vandalised in January, I can’t have any more conversations with my staff about their personal safety. I don’t want to be ringing people saying, ‘This is what happened, please be more cautious of your surroundings’.”

The individual who sent the messages and made the threatening call to Deputy Clarke’s office has also targeted TDs from other parties in the past. While his actions put him into a small subset of the general population, the fact that An Garda Síochána have organised briefings for members of Leinster House tells us something about modern society, she says.

“It’s a very sad reflection of what now is going on. I say that against the backdrop of someone who is a member of the British Irish Parliamentary Assembly whose meeting in Westminster in October was cancelled because one of the other members [Conservative MP David Amess] was murdered in his constituency office.

“I have no problem with people contacting me to say that they don’t agree with out policy on x, y or z; because that’s a conversation. There was nothing conversational about the messages that I received. Nothing. There was no effort to engage in conversation.

“They were simply sent to instil fear and a text message sent after the phone call said, ‘I could hear the fear in your voice’. That’s not political,” she said.

Minister of State Robert Troy has also been on the receiving end of threatening messages and texts during his career as a national politician.

“I have experienced nasty emails and nasty text messages, along the line of, ‘Be careful where you go’. I wouldn’t say it has been on a frequent basis, but certainly I would have received them a number of times.

“With a text message, you can’t hide it. You try and ring it back maybe. There has been one particular number that has been quite frequent of late, but do I feel vulnerable myself personally? No. Maybe because I am a man and I feel that I can defend myself, but no one should have to put up with that type of abuse for want of a better term.

“I have never had any issue with someone contacting me and legitimately raising an issue and doing so not under a fictitious name or in any way hidden on social media, but you have these bots acting under fictitious names and sending insulting and denigrating messages.”

While legislation currently going through the Dáil and European Parliament should help when it comes to dealing with online abuse and proliferation of fake news, Minister Troy says that with the advent of social media, politicians have never been more accessible and that isn’t going to change.

He says that “thankfully”, the abuse he receives online and elsewhere does not have a negative impact on his mental health.

“I switch off. I don’t have Facebook and Twitter on my phone any more. Many times I will respond to something because sometimes it does no harm to challenge people.

“It’s interesting that some of the people who are commenting negatively on social media are often people who talk about mental health on other forums. It’s obviously someone else’s mental health they are worried about and not politicians,” he said.

Minister of State Peter Burke says that while he understands that people get frustrated with politicians and that he welcomes “robust debate”, when it comes to social media, people’s behaviour can leave a lot to be desired.

“One of the huge assets of Irish politics is that our politicians are so accessible to people. I have my clinic every Monday in Mullingar and people can turn up without an appointment. I think it is very important that we are on the ground meeting people.

“Social media is very difficult but all you can do is carry on with your own work with dignity and respect.

“That’s as much as you can do, and you have to have free speech. It’s up to everyone on how they conduct themselves.”

Minister Burke says that while he has never been threatened personally, there were occasions during the pandemic when groups opposed to the measures introduced by the government were looking for his personal address on social media.

Like most politicians, he has been the subject of many negative comments on social media, but tries not to let it get to him.

“If you were thinking about it every night going to bed, you probably wouldn’t sleep.”