*Violet-Anne Wynne (Former IND TD). Photograph: Natasha Barton
FORMER independent Clare TD, Violet Anne Wynne’s residual debt to an ex-employee from a Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) award now totals €5,350, a court heard on Friday.
At Ennis District Court on Friday, solicitor, Shíofra Hassett said that payments continue to be made to her client, Fiona Smyth by Ms Wynne but on an ad-hoc basis.
Ms Hassett said that the amount outstanding from Ms Wynne to her client now totals €5,350.
The case was listed for Judge Alec Gabbett to monitor payments by Ms Wynne.
In court, Judge Gabbett asked Ms Wynne “what progress can be made?”
In response, Ms Wynne said: “I have been making all the payments – the ad-hoc thing is a reference to Christmas.”
Judge Gabbett told Ms Wynne: “You continue to make payments – that’s fine so.”
In court last July, Judge Gabbett directed that Ms Wynne pay €50 per week to Ms Smyth in order to pay off a then residual €6,500 debt to her former constituency office worker from a €11,500 WRC award made against Ms Wynne.
In August 2024, the WRC ordered Ms Wynne to pay the €11,500 after finding that Ms Smyth was unfairly dismissed by Ms Wynne.
Ms Wynne – who received a TD’s annual salary of €113,679 – lost her seat in the November 2024 General Election in Clare receiving only 310 first preference votes where she stood as an independent candidate in a vote collapse from her 2020 General Election vote when she topped the poll as a Sinn Fein candidate.
When the case was last before court in September, mother of six, Ms Wynne said that “it is not a case I was making payments whenever I felt like it. I was doing so with whatever little income that I had to hand.”
Ms Wynne told Judge Gabbett in September that now that she is in receipt of a weekly payment herself where she can now pay the €50 per week owed to Ms Smyth.
Asked what weekly payment she now receives, Ms Wynne said that it is €565 per week.
Solicitor for Ms Smyth, Daragh Hassett told the court last September that the Oireachtas has confirmed to him that the termination payment that would have been available to Ms Wynne on losing her seat would have been €18,946.50.
Ms Wynne confirmed that she did receive the €18,946 termination payment and paid out €5,000 of that to Ms Smyth earlier in 2025.
Asked by Judge Gabbett what happened to the remaining €13,000 or so, Ms Wynne said: “This was the only income I had from the time the general election was called last November until a tax back payment I have received.”
In court on Friday, Judge Gabbett adjourned the case to April 17th for further monitoring of the payments to be made by Ms Wynne.
