Candidates get safety advice after attacks in run-up to election

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have also held workshops and issued advice on safety measures.

It comes after an Independent councillor in Dublin, Tania Doyle, said she feared for her life after she and her husband were violently attacked by a man who demanded to know her position on immigration while they were out erecting election posters in West Dublin.

Louth Labour councillor Pio Smith also revealed he had a knife pulled on him by a young man in Drogheda, after he had cut down two of Mr Smith’s election posters.

Solidarity-People Before Profit local election candidate Ruth Coppinger said that she had a swastika cut into an image of her face on an election poster, describing it as a “sinister message” to her and others.

Mr O’Gorman said: “I am very aware that I’m in the privileged position, that I have a member of An Garda Síochána with me at most times. All local election candidates don’t have that.

“We provide advice within the party, we have provided escalation lines within the party, and organisations like Women for Election have been providing advice to female candidates — of all parties and none — in terms of the current situation.”

Mr O’Gorman said what candidates are getting now was “far beyond” the robust engagement and criticism seen before.

“It’s not good for our democracy because, if people feel nervous about putting themselves forward, that’s a terrible situation for our democracy to be in,” he said.

It emerged at the weekend that Ms Doyle and her husband were assaulted as they were finishing up putting in election posters in Blanchardstown, early last Wednesday morning.

She said they were finishing at around 1.15am when two men approached, one filming them and aggressively demanding to know her position on immigration.

She said her husband was forced to stand between them, at which stage the man started throwing punches at the couple.

Ms Doyle said she feared for her husband’s life as he has health conditions.

The attack lasted for 15 minutes before the second man intervened, allowing Ms Doyle and her husband to run away.

Her husband’s glasses were smashed into his face, leaving a gash, and he suffered abrasions and cuts to his legs and arms.

Mr Smith, in politics since 2011, said his incident also happened at around 1.15am on Wednesday.

Approaching a man who had cut down two of his posters at St Mary’s Bridge, in the centre of Drogheda, he asked the man what he was doing, adding: “[The man] jumped down from the bridge and said: ‘What are you going to do about it?’

“I said: ‘I’m going to call the guards.’

He pulled a knife and said: ‘What are you going to do about it now?’

“I said: ‘Look behind you, there’s a camera’ [a council camera].

“He pulled his hood up, made a swipe at me. He had a can of Carlsberg in his pocket and, as he ran off, he fired the can at me.”

Mr Smith said that, while he had no idea what politics his assailant had, he had “absolutely no doubt” that there is a growing threat from people with far-right views.

Fianna Fáil’s director of local elections Jack Chambers said it is a small minority of people carrying out the abuse, with much of it manifesting online.

He admitted there is both a heightened awareness and concern about abuse, but said he was confident that canvassing would continue for most candidates.