A Fianna Fáil member of Donegal County Council who had a piece of glass pressed against her throat by an intruder said yesterday she was "still trembling like a leaf" after the incident in her home early on Sunday.
Marian McDonald (62), said the hooded man pushed two large pieces of glass against her throat and ordered her not to support a plan to build a sewage treatment plant on the outskirts of Moville.
"My home has been invaded, my privacy has been invaded, but nothing will deter me from continuing with my work for my constituents. What happened was horrible. " she said.
Cllr McDonald said she saw the intruder in the kitchen of her Ard Foyle home in Moville after she returned from a night out in Letterkenny with a female friend.
"My friend rang as I stepped into the house. She said she had left her mobile phone in my car. As I spoke to her I walked down the hallway and into the kitchen. There was the man. He was wearing jeans, a hoodie and was just over five foot in height.
"I screamed. He came at me and pressed the pieces of glass against my throat. I could hear my friend shouting on the phone 'What's going on Marian?" He heard my friend too and that kind of panicked him and he left but before leaving he shouted at me 'This sewage plant cannot go ahead'.
"I screamed at him again and my friend kept shouting at me over the phone if I was okay. I told her I was and she hung up and phoned the guards and the guards were at the house within minutes," she said. Cllr McDonald said her husband James, their daughter Marie, and grandson Kelvin, slept through the incident.
"Thank God they did otherwise something more serious could have happened," she said.
"This plan for the sewage treatment has caused controversy in the town and the people near the proposed site want nothing to do with the scheme. It is badly needed but as yet no decision has been made by the council and I haven't made up my mind either but whichever decision I do make, I will not be influenced by thuggery of the kind I was subjected to in the kitchen of my own home," she said.
Enda Craig, spokesman for the Community For A Clean Estuary group, which opposes the sewage plant in Carnagarve, said the group had no difficulty in condemning the "horrific intrusion".
"Marian McDonald is our elected councillor. In fact three days ago she received a deputation from our group to discuss the siting issue. That was an exercise in participative democracy, unlike the thug who threatened her in her home and the sooner he is caught and brought before the court the better for society," he said.