‘Many serious questions’ unanswered by SF leader Mary Lou McDonald, Dáil told

There are “many serious questions” unanswered by Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald in relation to “her political protege turned gangland torturer” Jonathan Dowdall, a Minister of State has told the Dáil.

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Colm Brophy said Ms McDonald needed to “come clean” about why Dowdall was apparently facilitated to remain in Sinn Féin after a shooting incident in 2011 at his uncle’s home came to light before he was elected as a councillor in 2014.

The chamber was hearing statements on organised crime on Thursday afternoon. Earlier this week, Gerard Hutch was acquitted by the Special Criminal Court on charges of murdering David Byrne at the Regency Hotel in north Dublin in February 2016.

Dowdall was jailed in 2017 for serious offences involving the “waterboarding” of a man at his home in January 2015, an incident that occurred while he was still a Sinn Féin councillor.

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He had also been charged with the murder of Mr Byrne but that charge was dropped in September 2022. Dowdall pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of facilitating the murder by the booking of a room in the Regency Hotel and was the main prosecution witness in the trial last year.

[ Jonathan Dowdall leaves a trail of questions for Sinn Féin as he retreats into witness protection ]

Mr Brophy said Sinn Féin’s director of elections had discussed the 2011 gun attack with Dowdall before he was elected to the council and asked when had this conversation taken place and how many conversations were there.

Does the Dowdall connection harm Sinn Féin?

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The Fine Gael TD said there were reports on the Journal.ie in October 2014 that Dowdall had decided not to resign from Sinn Féin at that time after talks with party figures, and then deputy leader Ms McDonald had been “a total support and is one of the people he most admired in Sinn Féin”.

Mr Brophy said these reports were never disputed by Sinn Féin, and that “we need to know more about who convinced Jonathan Dowdall to stay within Sinn Féin”.

“Did his constituency mentor and now party leader Mary Lou McDonald call to his home on the Navan Road by the way, and persuade him to stay,” Mr Brophy said. “Did Deputy McDonald pressurise Jonathan Dowdall to stay in her local organisation ... What actions did Mary Lou McDonald take to ensure Dowdall remained on as a councillor.”

Mr Brophy said Dowdall was involved in organised crime at the same time he was a public representative for a political party. “We are talking about somebody [Ms McDonald] who seeks high office in this country of a political party, went out of her way to facilitate him remaining within her party, and indeed took no action except to canvass for him in an election after seemingly people in her party would have been aware of information about him,” he said.

[ Miriam Lord: Mary Lou subdued as questions about Dowdall links hang over Sinn Féin ]

The Minister of State added that the public deserved to know “every aspect about this sorry affair”.

“I would ask Deputy McDonald to take the opportunity to reply, and I think she needs to come clean about what has happened,” he said.

Ms McDonald said Dowdall “had no business” in Sinn Féin and should not have been in the party. The Dublin Central TD said Dowdall joined the party in June 2013 and left in February 2015, while his criminal activity was discovered in March 2016.

Ms McDonald said she first met Dowdall and his wife, a civil servant in the Department of Social Protection, at an event in advance of the 2011 general election.

“He was a family man. He was running a successful electrical business, working with some of the largest companies in the land. Indeed, he featured in the media about the success of his business. He was a north inner city kid who had worked really hard and who had done really well.

“We now know that this was not the real Jonathan Dowdall, a man who would go on to commit heinous crime, and he alone is responsible for his actions.”

The Sinn Féin leader said had she known for a second that what he was capable of or what he would go on to do, Dowdall “wouldn’t have been near me, he wouldn’t have been near Sinn Féin, and he certainly would not have been running for public office. I would not tolerate that”.

Ms McDonald also said her party stood 100 per cent with law-abiding citizens, with “the members of An Garda Síochána, the courts system, all of it, including the Special Criminal Court, against the threat of organised crime”.