Sinn Féin has denied stifling its elected representatives when it comes to their political commentary, after a Councillor left the party this week claiming to have been “silenced” when it came to topics like immigration.
Councillor Aidan Mullins, who represents Laois, was re-elected to the Council in June with nearly a full quota. He has announced that he will remain on the Council as an Independent.
In a statement, Mullins revealed that he had been considering this decision for a year, expressing that he felt he was “being silenced.” He mentioned disagreements with Sinn Féin over their positions on the two recent Family and Care referendums, immigration, and the hate speech bill.
He alleged that when he reshared a post about excluding biological men from women’s sports, “Another member of the party made a complaint about me and accused me of being ‘anti-trans’.”
“I had never made any comment on the post, I simply reshared the decision,” he added.
This incident led to his suspension for three months.
“That was the final straw for me,” he said. Mullins further told Midlands 103 that he had faced an investigation over social media posts regarding immigration, with a complaint alleging he had made “racist” comments – a claim which he “totally rejected.” Despite this, Councillor Mullins was informed that he was in breach of the party’s ethics.
However, responding to these charges, party finance spokesman and Donegal TD Pearse Doherty pushed back on the Councillor’s claims.
“Sinn Féin does not silence anyone in relation to their commentary,” he told Midlands103.
“You will have heard comments from different people over the years in relation to that, and that’s part and parcel of being in a political party.
“But also part and parcel of a political party, as is the case in all political parties, is we have processes, we have internal procedures, we have disciplinary procedures, and they have played out in relation to this.”
Notably, Mullins is not the first Sinn Féin representative to leave the party citing a stifling atmosphere.
In 2022, then-Sinn Féin TD Violet Anne-Wynn left the party, claiming she had been a victim of bullying, “gaslighting”, and “psychological warfare.”
In 2020, the chair of the party’s UCD Ógra wing, Christine O’Mahony, left the party after a Sinn Féin representative knocked on her door asking her to delete a social media post which was critical of one of the party’s TDs. She said she found this stifling, and admitted that “many councillors have resigned from the Sinn Féin party over the years, with a significant proportion of them over bullying.”
Between 2017 and 2018, Sinn Féin lost as many as 13 public representatives over various disputes regarding bullying allegations.