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)
