A local TD says she didn’t think it was serious initially when she saw the new safety guidelines for politicians.
Gardaí have issued advice for TDs to be more safety conscious in the wake of the bags of cow dung thrown at Anne Rabbitte and Ciarán Cannon during a public meeting last week.
It includes measures like getting panic alarms and wearing comfortable footwear in case they need to leave a situation in a hurry.
Kathleen Funchion says it might seem funny but it’s actually a very serious issue telling our Eimear Ní Bhraonáin “I did kinda smile when I saw that, I was like is that actually, you know, are you really actually saying that but I suppose when you think about some of the situations that people have found themselves in, it’s not something I would have thought about, you do get an awful lot of let say of online abuse mainly so I find, there has been situations where you might have felt uncomfortable or nervous”.
She adds “It’s quite startling in a way like it’s quite nearly unbelievable but then I suppose when you look at soem of the situations that people have found themselves in, one of our own TDs Martin Kenny his home was attacked twice, they’re moving, they’re selling their house as a result of that”.
Hear the conversation on KCLR Live in full here (scroll to the 1hour15minute mark):
