Aodhán Ó Ríordáin warns of ‘campaign of fear’ against politicians

Minister of State Aodhán Ó Ríordáin has warned of a “sustained and deliberate” campaign of targeting public representatives and their staff over the Irish Water issue.

Mr Ó Ríordáin said the door of his constituency office was interfered with last week and an anonymous caller rang up and said, “The next time it will be a bullet.”

The Minister of State at the Departments of Justice and Arts said it was commonplace for politicians to be abused over certain issues, but the Irish Water dispute took that abuse to another level.

“It’s a campaign of fear to make you feel like you can’t go into certain areas or speak on certain topics. That is undermining democracy,” he said.

‘Afraid of backlash’

“I have a democratic mandate. I don’t need to be told by anybody where I can or can’t go or what I can and can’t say. I know people in the political system who will not make an utterance on Irish Water either way because they are afraid of a backlash.”

Mr Ó Riordan said it was not typical of water protesters who were respectful and made their point without resorting to violence or threats of violence. He said politicians were being “vilified and abused on a co-ordinated basis” by a fringe attaching themselves to the Irish Water issue.

From fringe

“That backlash is not coming from ordinary, decent campaigners, who are willing to have a conversation about it. It is coming from a fringe who are attaching themselves to this campaign.”

“Hateful terminology” was being used against politicians he suggested to dehumanise politicians and their staff and then “anything goes”.

When asked who he believ- ed this fringe was, he said: “I have my suspicions but if I don’t have any evidence, there is no point in me saying it.”

Yesterday morning a bomb threat was delivered by a woman caller to the offices of Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly.

Mr Kelly described the threat as “deplorable” and “very traumatic” for the staff involved.

The call was made to a female member of staff working in his office shortly after 9am. “It was a threatening, abusive call. It was intimated a couple of times, ‘We’ll get ye, we’ll bomb ye’ and language of that nature,” a spokesman for the Minister said.

“Gardaí were called and detectives came on the scene. They took full statements. It is a matter for them now.”