Eoin Ó Broin: Stanley guilty of 'colossal errors of judgement' over tweets
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Brian Stanley is guilty of 'colossal errors of judgement' but is still fit to chair the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee, his party colleague Eoin Ó Broin has said.
Mr Stanley has been under intense scrutiny since last week tweeting an equivalence of the Warrenpoint and Kilmichael ambushes. He deleted and apologised for this tweet.
Another tweet came to light later in the week which members of Fine Gael called homophobic, as well as a radio interview which was dubbed racist.
Mr Ó Broin said that while Mr Stanley was wrong in some of his tweets he "had been accused of things that are wrong".
Higher Education Minister Simon Harris said he felt that if he had sent the same tweets, Sinn Féin would have called for him to be sacked.
"I'm just asking for Sinn Féin to hold itself to the same standard."
He said the incident where party member Christine O'Mahony received a call to her home from another party member over tweets that she had sent about Mr Stanley was "troubling". He said Sinn Féin had "sent the heavies around".
Mr Ó Broin said this wording was not appropriate. He said "anyone who thinks that this behaviour is helping Sinn Féin is wrong".
People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett said that while Mr Stanley's first tweet was "ill-judged", the tweet about Tánaiste Leo Varadkar was "very inappropriate".
"I don't believe that he has any record of homophobia, but it was very wrong and ill-judged."
Independent TD Marian Harkin said she "won't rush to judgement" but added the "to-ing and fro-ing" from Fine Gael and Sinn Féin is "not helpful".