From left: Róisín Shortall TD, Annmarie McNally, Catherine Murphy TD, Carly Bailey, of the Social Democrats during the abortion referendum; Ellie Kisyombe
Aaron Rogan, in The Times Ireland edition, reports:
The Social Democrat branch running the election campaign of Ellie Kisyombe, a Malawian asylum seeker, has restated its support for her in spite of continued controversy.
The Sunday Times has reported that the two most senior executives of the party resigned after a disagreement over plans to hold an internal review into Ms Kisyombe’s background. The paper had reported that she had given journalists inaccurate information.
Joe O’Connor, the party chairman, and Carly Bailey, vice-chairwoman, resigned after a meeting of the party’s national executive on Friday at which the decision to hold the review was taken.
The pair had disagreed with Catherine Murphy and Róisín Shortall, the party’s TDs and co-leaders, who favoured a review. Yesterday Chris Bond, who represents Dublin South West on the national executive, resigned.
Separately…
As a refugee lawyer, if my client wanted to run for election while her application was pending? My advice would be: 1-Don’t. 2-Say as little as possible about your background. If that means omitting some details that the public doesn’t need to know, then so be it.
— Wendy Lyon (@wendylyon) February 24, 2019
The asylum system is set up so that it’s actually impossible to come here and seek it without concealing some facts along the way. I mean literally impossible. And going public with some things about your journey could have dangerous repercussions.
— Wendy Lyon (@wendylyon) February 24, 2019
Third Social Democrat quits over Ellie Kisyombe review (The Times Ireland edition)
These Colours Don’t Run
How did a Murdoch rag gain access to Ms Kisyombe’s details to challenge what she told them? That’s the pertinent question here.
No, the pertinent question is why the Social Democrats thought a non-citizen would be an acceptable public representative.
Virtue Signalling FAIL.
You do realise that you don’t need to be an Irish citizen to run for local elections, right? Or are you just morally opposed to the idea of a non-citizen being elected?
I’m opposed to ambiguity from would-be political administrators.
Shouldn’t you be ringing rape crisis helplines and yelling at staff?
@Daisy: if a newspaper comes across information that catches any politician out on a lie, is it not their duty to report on it, regardless of where it came from?
I the Pc mentality gone mad
Next what a resident of Mali representing us
They don’t need to represent you, but they could represent other immigrants from Mali.
These “other immigrants from Mali” you speak of, do they have a vote? Are they citizens?
Yeh they’re citizens, they have a vote.
If they are citizens then why would they consider voting for an asylum seeker / possible illegal alien to represent them? Why would they subordinate their own citizenship to somebody who has issues with their legal status?
[I think you’re telling porky-pies btw – it’s the anti-whatsit MO]
And this is why there is so much mistrust between some Irish people and some Asylum seekers.
A front page Sunday Times account places her as a student in Bristol university between 2007 and 2010, then returning to Malawi before getting a student visa in Ireland in April 2011, then applying for UK asylum in July 2011. It also has her applying for Irish asylum in 2011 not 2010 as she has stated.
Sounds like a fraudelent application to me, if the Sunday Times is correct (n oone so far has said that they are not). Interesting that the most liberal and immigrant friendly of political parties has such an issue with this Woman.
oh wow cool you should work for immigration as you clearly have far more insight to her case than any of them.
Wel done dan.
Can’t tell the truth?
Scams the state?
Sounds like the ‘perfect’ politician.
+ 1
A one year discrepancy? IS THAT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT A ONE YEAR DISCREPANCY THIS WAS FRONT PAGE NEWS WHAT THE EFFIN EFF?
No. It’s not just over one year. She claimed she sought asylum in Ireland immediately after she arrived in Dublin airport. It turns out when she arrived in Ireland she applied for a student visa. She got that and then travelled to England. She then claimed asylum there but was deported to Ireland. And while she has claimed to have been in DP for 10 years it’s just not close to that. She spent a year and a half in the UK after claiming asylum in Ireland before she was arrested and deported a 2nd time from the UK to Dublin.
Thank you Jimjam, I was trying to find out what she had done as this post didn’t say. Online reports display a real aversion to the facts, referring only to this woman’s ‘background’ or her ‘journey’, plus some poisoning incident in Malawi.
Anyhow, if she’s an illegal immigrant, she can’t run for election here – simple as that, despite her popularity and applauded community work.
Details as reported in The Sunday Times and the Times today…
Ah I see.
No I don’t it’s still not flippin’ Watergate is it? Her info being leaked in a politically motivated hit seems like the bigger scandal here.
If she was just an asylum seeker it wouldn’t be a story. However she got massive media coverage since Xmas on the basis of having lived through the hell of DP for 10 years and now she was standing for election. Only right she gets called out for telling porkies when she’s seeking votes based on a false story.
Is private confidential data now fair game or is it only asylum seekers and pregnant women?
Pregnant women? What? Fair game for a political candidate to be called out for telling porkies.
Just thinking of whoever was letting the fundies know when an abortion is being performed so they could harass the woman. Different sphere same stink.
she can’t do any worse than the self serving corrupt fools we have had up until now,
by their fruits shall they be judged
CVs are sacred.
This is very unfortunate. She would have been a very interesting candidate, and one worth watching but she’s scuppered her chances with this.
The leadership of the Social Democrats who I 100% trust and admire had no other option apart from a review once that article appeared in the media.
As a matter of urgency there should be a thorough Government investigation of HOW & WHY her personal data got into the public domain especially re GDPR!
2 true
Matt Cooper has a great 10min interview clip on this:
https://www.todayfm.com/podcasts/the-last-word-with-matt-cooper/article-claims-inaccuracies-found-in-ellie-kisyombe-story
The journalist who broke the story lays out the facts. And then is accused of racism by Shane O’Curry, director of the European Network Against Racism, for not using a photo of her smiling alongside the article. And is told the “facts” are irrelevant, that launching any investigation into potential wrongdoing is racism.
Its crazy crazy stuff, really shows the extreme SJW mindset. Its pretty shocking that SocDems are resigning over simply investigating the matter, talk about virtue signalling.
@Zaccone + 1
Anybody putting themselves forward for election to public office can expect scrutiny. Journalists have dug and dug and exposed anomalies in Irish life for many years. All politicians and wouldbe politicians are liable to be queried in the media. It goes with the territory. Members of the Social Democrats who voted for an internal enquiry about this candidate are well aware that politics is not for the fainthearted.
+1 to both of you.
Very good points.
Journalists have dug and dug and exposed anomalies in Irish life for many years.
Yeah? Do continue. A few examples would be nice… especially from RTE.
So is she an asylum seeker or an immigrant? If she’s an asylum seeker I’d imagine she’ll want to return home to Malawi once she’s no longer in danger being there, right? So why is she getting in to politics here? Unless she’s an immigrant of course. There’s a difference.
What is shady about her background? Must be something significant to cause both resignations and a lawyer advocating to ‘say nothing’. Surely all candidates should be transparent somewhat before running for election to public office, no?
“The asylum system is set up so that it’s actually impossible to come here and seek it without concealing some facts along the way. I mean literally impossible. And going public with some things about your journey could have dangerous repercussions.”
well then that tells me that we shouldnt trust any asylum seekers here so. If being honest will have it declined then it says a hell of a lot about the types coming here.
No, it literally tells you about the Kafkaesque nature of the system and nothing about the asylum seekers.