A Kildare South TD who has left Sinn Féin says that questions she wanted to ask the party leadership at a meeting were “vetted”, adding that the party did not heed warnings of members regarding the two referendums earlier this year, and also “curtailed” her Facebook posts.
In an extensive interview with the Kildare Today programme on Kfm, Deputy Ryan said she felt pushed out of the party by their leadership, and undermined as a public representative. She said that the party had a problem nationally with listening to members.
On the programme, a message was read out from the Monasterevin Cumann of Sinn Féin who said the entire branch had resigned since Deputy Ryan had left the party – although it was clarified by a follow up message that some members had remained in the party.
“As time went on and we came to local elections, we were knocking on doors and I found we did get it wrong around the referendums,” she said referring to the Family and Care proposals in March.
“The party did come out and say they got it wrong, but it was a little too late when they came out because we were getting it on doors. But before we ever got it on the doors, I absolutely felt that we raised it with the party in team meetings. We said this isn’t the right way to go, and nobody listened to us as members.”
She said when she attended local meetings, she was often asked to show questions she intended to ask party leadership in advance.
“There were other issues around asking members if they were going to a meeting, to come along and to say “we’d really like to see your questions before you ask the leader”. Why would you ask somebody that’s a member of a party to come along and have their questions vetted that they’re going to ask the leader of the party? If you’re a member of a party, you should be able to openly ask that question without being curtailed. So there were issues around that,” she said.
“I feel somebody telling you to take down posts is wrong. I feel somebody saying to you that questions going to meetings must be vetted is wrong. I think that’s the wrong way to go. There has to be respect both from me and from them,” she told host Shane Beatty on Kfm.
“I spoke to Mary Lou about four weeks ago, and she assured me they would look into everything. But I’ve been raising these issues for months, and nothing was addressed,” she said, adding that she was being “undermined” by other party members.
“They need to listen to people better. They need to listen to their members better,” Deputy Ryan said.
Asked by the Kfm programme host to respond to criticisms made by party members in her cumann in an email seen by the show, she said that she “absolutely did not disengage” from the local party structure.
She said that she had set up the local Grey Abbey Martyrs cumann with her son and had worked in Sinn Féin for 15 years.
As reported by Gript yesterday, Deputy Ryan decided to resign from Sinn Féin rather than put her name forward at a convention at which, Ryan was informed, recently elected Councillor Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh would also be nominated.
Gript understands that Ní Raghallaigh, who did retain Ryan’s former Council seat in June with just 599 votes, would have had the backing of Sinn Féin head office.
On Kfm, Deputy Ryan said that Ms Ní Raghallaigh had “only come on the scene” some 6 weeks before the local election.