*Cllr Donna McGettigan (SF). Photograph: John Mangan
OUTGOING TD, Violet-Anne Wynne (IND) should have returned her seat to Sinn Féin according to Cllr Donna McGettigan (SF).
In one of the more tense exchanges from The Electoral Chair: Election Debate, Cllr McGettigan called out Deputy Wynne for not giving back the seat she won as a Sinn Féin candidate in February 2020 after she resigned from the party two years later.
Speaking at the debate, Cllr McGettigan commented, “The Sinn Féin seat was a Sinn Féin seat, it is up to us to win that seat back again, it wasn’t an Independent seat, nobody was voted into that seat as an Independent, it was a Sinn Féin seat, the money hasn’t been paid back as far as I’m aware and it should be. She should have handed the seat back and it could have gone to a convention”.
Deputy Wynne responded, “The whole process of what I went through in being elected as a Sinn Féin TD and what I experienced locally in particular from local members and elected representatives of Sinn Féin, that could have been dealt with differently, you have your viewpoint and I have my viewpoint”.
In an interview with The Clare Echo, Shannon based Donna said she offered help “the whole time” to Deputy Wynne when she was encountering difficulties following her election to the Dáil.
She said, “We were helping Violet-Anne the whole time, we were meeting and you have to remember this was during COVID, we were meeting every Friday on Zoom at the time, as a councillor I and other members of the party were meeting her at the time and we were giving actions to take away from the meetings that we would take back to help Violet-Anne, we helped her in every way and I’ll tell you something I was very disappointed in the fact that she said she didn’t get help because at the time my husband was dying of cancer and I still stood up and helped, that is what you get told that you didn’t help. It can be very upsetting when you know you did help but look she has moved on now, she is going to face the electorate and they will vote on her and her record now, best of luck to her”.
Meanwhile, Deputy Wynne confirmed that she will not be repaying a loan paid by Sinn Féin for rent arrears of €12,126 over a four-year period dating to June 3, 2016 for a property at Tullycrine. She said, “the arrangement with Sinn Féin ceased when I left the party, I know they still receive €27,000 from myself as a TD, in politics when you leave a party unless you are expelled the allowance goes and stays with the party so they have availed of €27,000 for each year that I have been a member of the party”.
