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SINN FÉIN’s TD Brian Stanley has repeated his apology in connection with his tweet about two IRA attacks on the British Army.
TD Laois / Offaly, who is also the chairman of the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), sent the tweet on Saturday, on the centenary of the Kilmichael ambush in 1920.
He wrote to his 3,700 followers: “Kilmicheal (sic) (1920) and Narrow Water (1979) the 2 IRA operations that taught the electives of the () British Army and the establishment the cost of occupying Ireland. Too bad they all learned so slowly. “
In a statement Sunday, Stanley apologized “for the content of an inappropriate and insensitive tweet I sent.”
Since then, there have been calls for Stanley to step down from the PAC chair for a period of time over the matter.
Reading a statement at the beginning of today’s PAC meeting, Stanley told the committee that he needs to be more aware of his responsibility not to do anything that is disrespectful to others.
Repeating his apology, he said: “My tweet fell below standards, not just the standard that we expect from each other, but the standard that I expect of myself as a member of the Dáil and so I am truly sorry.”
“I also want to apologize to all of my colleagues for the position in which I placed them all,” he said.
“We need to be able to talk about the past in a way that is honest with our beliefs, but also does not deepen the divide or cause harm,” added Stanley.
“As an Irish Republican and as someone in a position of political leadership. I have to be more aware of my responsibility to make sure I don’t do anything that is disrespectful to others, ”he said.
Since the mid-1980s, throughout the Hume / Adams dialogue, and “finally until the Good Friday Agreement was reached, I have actively supported initiatives to bring more peace to the island,” he added.
Fine Gael’s Colm Burke said the tweet sent by Stanley was not the first Sinn Féin tweet to be deleted. He asked Stanley to make a full statement in the Dáil to restore the credibility of him and the PAC.
Co-leader of the Social Democrats, Catherine Murphy, said she acknowledges that Stanley removed the tweet and apologized, but said it has caused “quite a bit of attention.”
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill of Fine Gael said it should go beyond an apology to this committee, stating that such tweets are “becoming more and more normalized just as we move into a period of commemorations.”
Marc MacSharry of Fianna Fáil accepted her apology, stating that the tweet was insensitive.
However, he asked that a kind of quantity be drawn up to list the offenses or slights committed by those in public office, and at what level they should be reprimanded.
“I think as a nation we have become a coliseum,” where we are “too eager to mount a guillotine,” MacSharry said.
He said that all too often, no matter what the indiscretion is, there is “one result at a time: looking for someone’s head.”
Sinn Féin Matt Carthy said that anyone who knows Brian Stanley will recognize that he is a “good man, first and foremost, he is a just man, without a doubt he is a very fair and effective chairman of this committee in the few months since we have been in existence” .
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Sinn Féin’s Imelda Munster said Stanley’s apology was a genuine apology and said it should be the end of the matter.
Stanley said that his actions were his alone, stating: “I was wrong, I have apologized, I mean it sincerely.”
“I am solely responsible, I am solely responsible for my actions,” he added, and told his fellow committee members that he is giving them a commitment, both with his words and with his actions, that they can have confidence in him as president. of the PAC.
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