A 57-year-old woman sent obscene phone messages to Áras an Uachtaráin threatening to bomb President Michael D Higgins if he visited England, a court has heard.
On one occasion Anne Fennell referred to President Higgins as a “ladyboy” and on another told the receptionist that “the President and Sabrina Higgins would go home in plastic bags if they set foot on English soil”.
She made repeated threats to bomb the president over several phone calls in April 2014 and again in October the same year.
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court also heard that the entire area around Dáil Éireann had to be searched on November 18th, 2014, when Fennell called to say there would be a bomb at the main gate.
‘Screaming’
The parliamentary usher who took the call later told gardaí that Fennell, a former An Post worker, had hung up “screaming”.
Fennell, of Monastery Gate Green, Clondalkin, Dublin, pleaded guilty to making persistent annoying phone calls and sending obscene or menacing phone messages to Áras an Uachtaráin, the Department of Finance, the European Commission Representation, An Post Dublin Mail Centre and the constituency offices of TDs Alan Kelly, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin and Noel Coonan between February 2nd and December 1st, 2014.
She has no previous convictions.
Supt Michael Cryan told Elva Duffy, prosecuting, that Fennell apologised to gardaí when they arrested her after tracing calls to her Nokia mobile phone.
She said she had been reacting to news stories on television and told officers she was “lonely”. She added that her threats were “just words”.
Supt Cryan said Fennell revealed that she rang Dáil Éireann weekly to complain about various issues.
He agreed with Kevin White, defending, that his client lived alone in “very poor circumstances” out of a sleeping bag in a bottom room of her house.
He accepted she had “no means or know-how” to carry out the threats and that she was angry at herself and the world.
Mr White said his client regretted her behaviour and offered no excuse for it.
The judge noted from a photograph handed to her in court that Fennell lived in “sub-human conditions”.
She remanded Fennell on continuing bail to July so she could continue with her psychological therapy and engage with the probation services.
The judge ordered a probation and welfare report to see if any structures could be put in place to give Fennell a more “pro-social” existence, as her offending seemed due to her isolation.