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An Independent election candidate in Kerry has said she was “shocked” to receive a phone call from Gardaí who asked her to come for an interview in relation to comments she had made online.
Michelle Keane told Gript she received a phone call yesterday evening from a Garda to inform her that “people are taking offence” to comments she had made in relation to “foreign nationals coming into the country”.
Describing the call as “pure harassment” Keane said “I’m entitled to my opinion”, adding that she has no problem calling “undocumented asylum seekers scumbags.”
“I make no apologies for it,” she said, expressing concern for the safety of women and girls due to thousands of undocumented individuals entering the country over the last number of years, with at least 13,521 arriving since 2018 with no documentation.
Keane said she asked if someone had made a complaint about her comments but that this information was not forthcoming and that she was told that no statements had been made against her.
Gript contacted An Garda Síochána to enquire if a criminal complaint had been launched in respect of Keane and if so what law it had been made under. We were told that the Gardaí are unable to comment on individual cases.
Keane said that during the course of the call she was asked “approximately five times” to visit the garda station.
She added that it is her belief that there is a “smear campaign” in operation against her efforts to run as a candidate in the upcoming local elections.
“I’m out for the good of our country” she said adding that she had become impassioned by the “destruction” that she says the “cobbled together” government has caused to Ireland.
“We’re the ones that are suffering,” she said, adding that it was her belief that the government and judicial system was now favouring the interests of “criminals” over the Irish people.
Keane said that she is “not racist” and has “no problem” helping those who are in need of help but that weekly IPAS numbers have shown that ‘large numbers of people are coming to Ireland seeking asylum from safe countries such as Nigeria’.
“If you arrived into a country with no passport you’d be put on the next flight home,” she said.
Keane says that she has huge support online and that her views are representative of the views of “90% of the Irish people”.
She called on the people to “put pressure” on TDs and Senators to reject the EU Migration Pact saying,
“We all know Fine Gael and simple Simon will try to push Ireland to opt in,”.
“The Irish people need to wake up now and realise what’s happening,” she said.
“I want Ireland to be great again,” she said, adding that “we’ve a great country but we’re going to lose it the way we’re going.”
Speaking of her experiences canvassing in the Castleisland constituency of north Kerry, she said that stories she hears on the door include people struggling to put petrol in their cars, to feed their children, and to heat their homes, ‘while the government foots the bill for non-nationals’.
“I’m listening at the door when I’m canvassing people and I’m hearing realities that would frighten and shock people if they knew what was happening in this country,”.
She said that there are people who are “forfeiting” their own meals in order to feed their children saying that “the cost of living has just gone through the roof and wages have not increased.”
“I’m disgusted when I see this homelessness crisis on our streets,” she said.
She said that people in Castleisland had contacted her saying that their landlords are threatening to increase rents despite contractual fixed payments.
“The landlords want to get them out and get the IPAS in.” she said.
Keane says she has taken legal advice in respect of the phone call she received and that she had made the offices of the Minister for Justice, GSOC, and the Superintendent in Listowel.
“I wrote my concerns and everything and that I was going public with this,” she said adding, “I’m a law abiding citizen and I’m entitled to my opinion.”
She said that she believes that if the proposed ‘hate speech’ bill was enacted at the moment that she would have been arrested and jailed over her comments “just for having an opinion”.
“If we can’t have an opinion we’ve lost our independence in this country,” she said.
The mother of two said her daughter was “very distressed” after hearing the conversation with the gardaí.
“If I wasn’t as strong as I am, I’d be made mice of,” she said, adding that her faith in God gives her strength. “I knew going for politics would be a bloodbath,” she said.
“I know that 90% of people that I’ve met and who follow me on Tiktok are approving of what I’m saying.”
“I’m just an ordinary mother and businesswoman,” she said adding, “if they want to arrest the likes of me what good am I going to be inside a jail cell for them?”
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