COMMENTS by a Donegal County Councillor about Travellers erupted into another row on TV3’s Tonight With Vincent Browne.
A house outside Ballyshannon which was allocated by the council to the Ward family in the town was burned down earlier this year – just weeks after Cllr Sean McEniff hit out at the decision.
The councillor, who said Travellers should live together, later gave an assurance to Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin that he would not repeat the comments.
Now it has emerged that Cllr McEniff has since met Traveller groups
The journalist repeatedly challenged Fianna Fail Justice Spokesman Niall Collins over Cllr McEniff’s views.
“It was absolutely wrong and we said that,” said Collins.
Browne responded: “Did you expel him? Is there a place for racists in Fianna Fail is there?”
Collins: “You want to take this centre stage and make one person who expresses an opinion, a racist view, which is a personal opinion and doesn’t reflect the party policy; you want to move that into centre stage and that person to be expelled.”
Browne: “I’m saying you didn’t expel him and there is room in Fianna Fail for racists.”
Collins: “Look Micheal Martin spoke to the man (Sean McEniff), told him to desist from doing it; he met with the Traveller groups in Donegal and they acknowledged widely that the Fianna Fail party – and that the councillors in Donegal – have been very pro-active in dealing with Travellers’ groups. That man has expressed a personal view. It was a personal view and not a Fianna Fail view and we nailed that at the time and Micheal Martin nailed that at the time and you know that.”
Browne responded: “If a councillor in Northern Ireland nowadays in a unionist party expressed similar views about Catholics I think there would be tremendous pressure on either the DUP or the Ulster Unionist Party to expel them. And I think they probably would. But it’s ok in our political culture when a councillor expresses these racist views that there is a little finger-wagging and that’s it.”
Deputy Collins came back, saying: “No it’s not ok. And he (Cllr McEniff) was spoken to by the party leader.”
Browne went again, saying: “I’m saying that it’s ok; that there is room in Fianna Fail for racists. That’s what that means.”
Collins: “No, no, no, no.”
Browne said society was riddled with prejudice against Travellers and predicted his show would get a host of text messages and tweets and emails that would be racist.
Tags:
