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SINN FÉIN’S SPOKESPERSON for Justice, Martin Kenny, condemned an alleged incident perpetrated against fellow TDs Anne Rabbitte and Ciaran Cannon this week, as he opened up about his own experience with security concerns.
A Garda investigation is currently underway following the junior minister’s claim that a bag of excrement was thrown at her and Cannon on Wednesday.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland today, Kenny said the incident was “a new low in the way people behave.”
“It’s outrageous, and displays a terrible ignorance on behalf of anyone who would prepare before they come to a public meeting to attack a public representative in that way.”
“I think there has been a development over a number of years now, a small cohort of people seem to think that the more outrageous they can be, the more aggressive they can be, that somehow it’s a badge of honor.
“We have a society that generally has had manners in the past, and it’s very regressive that that has disappeared.”
The TD was asked how the issue related to his own experiences as a politician, referring to a man who was arrested in September after a car was driven through the gates of the home of Kenny’s home.
“It has had a major impact because it has been a huge trauma. We live in a quiet rural area and a great community. But our house is quite near the road. We feel very vulnerable. Our safety has been violated a number of times now and we’ve made the decision that we’re going to sell and move somewhere else,” Kenny stated.
It’s understood that the vehicle drove through the closed gates of the property, narrowly missing the house.
Shortly after the incident Kenny told Leitrim Live that his wife was alone in the house at the time.
“Our children are a little bit older, there’s three of them in college. So if I’m away at night, during the week in Dublin when the Dáil is sitting she would be at home alone. So I’m not able stay in Dublin since this incident happened because she’s not at all comfortable staying in the house on her own,” he continued.
In 2019, the TD’s car was set on fire outside his home in a targeted attack. Nobody was injured in the fire.
Kenny has also submitted death threats he received to Gardaí following a speech he made about asylum seekers in the Dáil Chamber during the same period.
“We have decided to deal with this by moving house, we’re putting as positive a light on it as much as we possibly can.”
When asked if the attacks on his home made him reconsider a life in politics, Kenny said:
“We talked about everything I suppose. And it is something that we’ve talked about certainly. We recognize that being elected, representing the community, representing this constituency is a privilege and an honor.”
“While we may have to change where we live for very practical reasons, I’ve certainly had no intention of backing away from the commitment I made.”
Kenny also celebrated the accesibility of politicians to the public and said that he agrees with measures to increase security for politicians.
“Where that can happen, that should certainly be advanced. Our public representatives who are in a vulnerable position or a dangerous position should certainly be protected.”
“All of us in politics are delighted to be able to be so accessible to the public. And we should continue to do that. We shouldn’t allow a tiny minority of people to undermine that or take that away.”
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The destruction of ireland continues
@jiminybillybob: Yep. The state of Lough Neagh, our rivers, freshwater mussels as rare as hens teeth, ever increasing invasive species.
@jiminybillybob: The tactics of the IFA and other farming organisations are little different from those of the DUP: science-free, self-defeating and in no way willing to compromise. Like the DUP’s approach in the North, this approach is indeed destructive.
@jiminybillybob: Absolutely need to get out of that CULT
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: if only fish and other marine life could approach Varadkar and tell them what they think should happen with their habitat. Things that still run this country EU, politics, IFA, church ( yes the church still has a say unfortunately )
@jiminybillybob: i think you all misunderstood me. It’s the eu that wants the destruction of Irish agricultural sector. Just like the fisheries.
But yeah let’s get rid of all farms and herds so we can be completely dependant on other countries for food.
Lets sell it all.
@jiminybillybob: Is it naturall produced nitrates they used or sythetic ones that are being flushed into rivers and lakes causing fish kills??
If it is synthetic then shouldnt there be a move away from them anyway to a more naturaly produced ones.
Do you know if alot of farmers these days use crop rotation to naturally regenerate the ground without the used of synthetic chemicals?
Legit question BTW.
The piece says: “Lombard added: “I am a dairy farmer… and I have only one way of meeting my targets. So, forgive me for being blunt here, but this affects my livelihood.””
Why is this full-time, publicly-paid Senator even allowed at this meeting? There is an obvious conflict of interest which he himself admits.
Basically, farmers are saying we want to continue to pollute more than everyone else. They’ve had a derogation. The data shows that the mitigation measures haven’t worked.
@Kevin Farrell: I sent an e mail to this guy. The Gardaí came to my house “with advice”.
@Gavan Hogan: If you believe in what you emailed, please share with the group om sureties delightful!
Thousands of cows are slaughtered every week for the beef industry anyways, don’t be under the impression any of these protests are for animal welfare.
Cattle farming is incredibly bad for the environment, in every sense. If you combine every other type of farming (poultry/lamb/pork etc) and put them all together they still don’t even come close to the emissions/land/water usage that cattle requires. The industry has to either clean up it’s act or else reduce its herd size.
I know I’ll be bombarded now with “it’s better than beef from Brazil/New Zealand” etc, which I agree with, we shouldn’t ever be importing, but in reality we need to drastically cut down our beef consumption anyways. And no, I’m not a vegetarian/vegan.
@ChrisF: is that why for 1000s of year, the crop rotation for wheat farmers was year 1 Wheat, year 2 wheat, year 3 Grass gazed by cattle. The reason was to rest the land and use cows to fertilize it. You know growing crops is terrible for land. WHY?
Ploughing land breaks down the soil, on a wet day like today you will have lots of water run off, brown water which removes the nutrients which then flows into rivers. You won’t have this in a grass field because the vegetation holds the soil structure. Grasslands store more carbon that tillage fields. Even ploughing a tillage field releases carbon from the soil. Tillage farmers use a lot of round up and other pesticides and insecticides. This isn’t good for the animals, the land, the soil or the people. A tillage field is a monoculture where all the diversity is killed.
Its best to do regative agriculture. But you will never hear anyone mention this because there are too many agendas. Maybe just maybe we ban private jets because this will help the planet overnight. In a single trip a plane will burn 100,000L of jet fuel. But no the people who create our food are the problem.
@Washpenrebel: How do you get from wheat (year 2) to grass (year 3)???
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: You are on here preaching to the farming community how things should be done, but to quote Clair Byrne. You haven’t got a clue
@Washpenrebel: I am no expert but I have no doubt that the scientific/ ag specialists were the real experts who made this decision. The farming community increased the size of the national herd by, I think 1.5million in recent years, so don’t tell me that they didn’t know this was coming and yet were more than prepared to contaminate drinking water than to plan for the future. Even now the ‘ current derogation is due to end in 2026 and they won’t even plan for that by reducing now. Water is used in nearly every stage of food processing and given the amount of bacteria it carries, ye could potentially end up contaminating the food supply, all because of your short term greed. We have seen the consequences of foot and mouth disease and we already have water supply difficulties and ye want to impose greater hardships on us.Just think of a baby drinking contaminated water and the effect that has on its immune system.
@ChrisF: maybe us humans as herd size needs to be reduced. It’s awful to say but we are over 2 billion people too many in this world. People especially in the developed world are too energy dependent. The world will be ok but we won’t, it’ll find a way to spit us out..
@ChrisF: you know nothing about farming either. As most of carbon emissions from cattle is co2 from simply breathing, and guess what! Grass takes in co2 in photosynthesis (growing)
@BarryH: Sorry to burst your bubble but you are wrong. Ireland’s national herd has decreased by half a million since 2002. You have no idea what you are talking about. According to the DAFM’s Animal Identification and Movement System (AIMS) report, on December 31, 2002, there were 7,074,033 cattle in Ireland. As of December 31, 2022, 20 years later, there were 6,504,599 cattle in Ireland. The rest of your comment is nonsense. Ireland accounts for a huge amount of the worlds baby food. IE Milk. The recent shortage in the US saw the US army come here to secure it. We have the best quality milk in the world because of our high standard and because our cows are predominantly grass fed. IE Irish butter is yellow because of the grass. The butter used in other countries is white because cows are mainly indoors on a grain fed diet. Please do some research before you spout nonsense.
@Brendan Godley: No. Will the stubble be left there? Will it be ploughed/harrowed before re-seeding with grass? Will more fertiliser be put on after sowing? It’s not as simple as you make it sound, is it?
@Washpenrebel: A 737 has a fuel capacity of 17000 litres….
These comments reek of desperation. The Irish farming sector was given an exemption, to the detriment of the environment. This was the most liberal exemption of the three countries that were given one. We will still keep this exemption, but it will be curtailed by a small amount for a relatively small number of farmers (2% of all farmers). Now they pretend the sky is falling in. The tactics of Irish farming reps are increasingly like those of the DUP: science-free and in no way willing to compromise.
@Name not provided:
13% of farms in Ireland are dairy, plus the tillage sector completely depends on the dairy sector to buy it’s produce.
(And no, they can’t change to growing vegetables as they are completely uneconomical at world market price.)
@P.J. Nolan: don’t cod yourself the dairy industry buys it’s animal feed from Irish tillage farmers. Look at Cork port importing animal feeds from all over the world.
@P.J. Nolan: It’s only a small number of those farms that benefit from the 250kg/ha derogation (which no other EU country benefits from btw). The 220kg/ha will be still in place for now. Bear in mind that the normal limit for nitrogen loading is 170kg/ha. The Commission looked at the data on our ever-worsening waterway pollution and said that this extremely generous exemption should be somewhat curtailed.
@Thomas Hayes:
Who do you think buys it?
Of course they will import it if they can get it cheaper but that’s an argument about the price, doesn’t change the fact that the vast bulk of the grains grown in Ireland are used for animal feed with dairy cows being the bulk of that.
@Name not provided:
8000 dairy farmers applied for a nitrates derogation last year, add in tillage sector affected by a reduction you are probably in the region of 8% to 10% of farmers in total.
@P.J. Nolan: if they cannot make a profit in farming without destroying the environment then they need to change occupation.
@P.J. Nolan: 6000 farmers benefit from the derogation, but only 3000 benefit from the 250kg/ha derogation. This will be the number that will be directly affected as they will have to bring their stocking rate down to comply with the 220kg/ha derogation (about 2% of all farmers, 16% of dairy farmers). Incidentally, these are the most profitable farmers in the country.
Farmers campaigned for years to get the milk quotas lifted and there were celebrations all round when these were finally lifted in 2015. Once they were lifted farmers borrowed to increase the size of their herds. With all that extra milk coming to market the price of milk has fallen drastically in recent years. And now they have to reduce their herd sizes so it has come full circle.
@Harry Whelks
Looks to me like you are adjusting ‘facts’ to suit you agenda.
A simple Google search shows milk prices are 40% higher today than 2015, went from 25c to 35c.
To be fair costs have risen too.
Last year was a record high for milk prices, went well over 50c so the last 12 months has shown a significant drop.
@Harry Whelks: you do know that it was the dept of agriculture partnered with Irish banks along with the low prices tillage farmers were getting paid that pushed farmers into milk and more cows. They didn’t think this up themselves. Tillage farmers profits have never been good. Supermarkets are constantly imported vegs from overseas to drive down the prices paid here. Some even import UK potatoes, package them here and sell them as Irish potatoes to screw farmers here.
We used to have a very profitable sugar beet industry here that was destroyed by our own government. All the factories shut down to allow cheaper cane sugar to come in from South America. Farmers used to have diverse farms, ie cows, sheep, grain, beet ect. The govt pushed them away from this model into dairy only. It happened in the 80s and 90s.
We have the farming landscape here because of policy driven by successive governments, it was not farmers that got us here.
Time to move on farmers.You are not going to win this one.The IFA trying to placate the few big boys at the top table.Think of the future generations who will appreciate our cleaner lakes and rivers.
@Willie Marty: hmm yeah the future generation who won’t own their own property but will have to pay exorbitantly high rents to the same global conglomerates who will control the property / land banks and the food supply ( and pricing ) into Ireland by then …but hey the rivers will be cleaner ….( or will they ? )
@Dave Hammond: the rivers will be cleaner when the few big farmers earning over £140k+ stop over spreading fertilizer
It’s actually hilarious that a sector that slaughters animals uses “animals will be slaughtered” as an argument.
They even slaughter calves at a couple of weeks old because they are not profitable to feed, especially jersey calves…so money trumps everything over animals and environment
@hi from heaven: since that is completely against the law, I’m calling you out as a liar. It is spoofers of your ilk that spread all this populist raiméis, and give an industry a bad name. If you want to come at agriculture, there are plenty areas which you could highlight. Instead, you choose to tell lies. Not the sharpest tool in the box. Do you lick windows in your spare time?
@Joe Mckenna: it was literally on prime time a month or 2 ago
@hi from heaven: unwanted human babies in the womb are killed at under 12 weeks
@P. V. Aglue: Wombs don’t contain babies. The first 2 weeks after conception are known as the ‘germinal’ stage, the 3rd through the 8th week is known as the ‘embryonic’ period, and the time from the 9th week until birth is known as the ‘foetal’ period. After birth: ‘Babies’.
@Tom Dillon: Sorry Tom if you murder a pregnant woman you will kill her and her unborn baby. Its still a baby.
@Damien Leahy: You wouldn’t happen to be talking about the veal industry in Holland, Spain, and Poland by any chance? Last I looked, none of those were in ireland….
How about just ignore the EU? If Hungary and Poland can do it on fundamental rights, Ireland can do it on a few nitrates right?
@Steven Schulz: Ignore the EU and do what’s right and bring it down below 220/ha, I think you might be on to something.
To all the self appointed environmentalists rabbiting on about water quality and farming on here, 80% of all the nitrates that end up in our water systems are put in by the STATE through our archaic water and sewage treatment plants. Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good hammering on the people that provide our food. The govt is lying about farmers carbon footprint, lying about cows effect on the environment and now lying again about farmers destroying water quality. And the amount of paid subscribers on here pushing this 5hite is nothing short of disgraceful.
@Michael McGrath: I would welcome any proof or link supporting your comment, otherwise it’s just a rant.
@Michael McGrath: your spot on. There is a million less cattle in the country than 1980. There’s probably 10 billion gallons more slurry storage than 1980. The calendar farming rules accually increase the risk of field run off contaminating water courses. Growing grass and hedgerows takes up the co2 from the cattle. The human population of Ireland is up 2million since 1980, none of sewage plants in villages have been upgraded enough to cope.
@Michael McGrath: No harm for someone to tell the truth. But there really is no talking to the robes and sandals zealots. County councils are openly acknowledged as the biggest polluters, followed by manufacturing and transport. Agriculture is way down the list. But the velvet eared woke brigade will not countenance anything which may affect their comfort.
Oat milk tastes much nicer and creamier than dairy milk. Not a vegan btw, just prefer the flavour. Healthier too.
@ASC: It really doesn’t. But you do you.
@ASC: I like the half-and-half: half oat (for the nutty flavour), half dairy for the texture. If this was on the shelves ready-made, I’d buy it
@ASC: you do know its full of sugar!!!
@ASC: One cup of oat milk contains around seven grams of added sugars. Some brands use artificial fillers and preservatives, which can have adverse health effects.
@ASC: Black tea/coffee is the way to go lads. Anyone adding any kind of milk is basically an oversized baby
@ASC: the emulsifiers in it are not.
When last did this government make a decision to make farmers lives easier. We have rules in this country set out by the dept of agriculture that aren’t enforced anywhere else in Europe. They love to be the best boy in the class. Yet the have not once gone after the supermarkets or the barron meat processor over the monopoly that they hold. For example the meat factories know how many cattle are in this country and what age they are. They then use this data to screw farmers by dropping prices. Farmers work 60 to 70 hours a week and as a reward the government makes their lives harder. We have the best food in Europe, but farmers are going to walk away unless things improve. The average age of farmers is 50/60 with young people refusing to enter the profession as its just not worth it.
There’s fields around me with a lot more than 3 cows to the hectare.
@Peter Boyle:
At the height of the summer there could be 5 or more per hectare
But how many are on the fields where he cuts silage?
None.
It’s called an average.
They spray the cereals with roundup before harvest to make it EASIER to harvest….. EASIER to harvest not essential
It’s EU’s fault.
The new FFG line…
For when suits and against when not..
Sad
@Davy:
Find a politician anywhere in the world who doesn’t do the same, blame someone else when it goes wrong, hog the praise when it does
I smell a subsidy coming. So do the farmers (obviously).
Poorer, Colder, Hungrier – Go green, Go Woke, Go Broke
@ForYourSafety:
“Irish households spent 8% of their budgets on food in 2021, which is below the EU average of 14%, according to Eurostat.”
We might/do get fleeced on housing and other stuff, but FOOD seems to be not one of them.
Farmers get subsidies to keep food prices low (fair enough).
They dump the cow poo and fertilizer on the fields. The tax payer than does pay to remove the sh*t, in this case nitrate, phosphor and other stuff from the drinking water, paying again.
Farming is a business today and has been for decades.
I don’t think it’s asked too much to reduce the impact of a business it has to the environment, to avoid the cost and impact for the public.
Other EU countries do and try to do it.
Ireland is too often ignoring environmental directive (Ireland did agree on), asking for more and more exemptions, without getting often much done.
The farmers did well know for years what is about to come, gambled by increasing the herd and took the profits. That’s all fair and square.
But now, the bell tolls, they knew it will come and they still complain.
Your “Go Green” has zero to do with this one.
I have no relation with a farmer this days, but if my above is wrong, feel free to educate me (with facts and links ;-)).
Farmers with their slurry have decimated Irish rivers, streams & lakes greatly diminishing fish stokes by starving the waterways of oxygen. This has been a serious issue since the 90s and fair play to the E.U here because the incompetent useless governments we have endured couldn’t care less.
@Gary: If you look at half of comments here, you’re wasting your breath.
It’s all a big conspiracy, the bad EU and the attack of “The Greens” on the farmers/rural Ireland. Everyone saying different is a paid EU/government/Green shill.
It’s astonishing that people can post stuff, but not spend 5 minutes to look for numbers actually supporting or disapproving their point.
@Gary: You do know that recently Irish water have been the main reason for sewage getting into rivers, lakes and the sea. We have a big problem in this country with water treatment from houses. Farmers pumping slurry in waterways has by and large been stopped. There are huge fines and penalties. And you do know that slurry is really good for the soil. The worms love it and it makes everything grow. You’re comment makes it seem like its toxic. Its not. Peat free compost is slurry with the water removed.
They’d be slaughered anyway
@IPAS Conman:
From the CSO: “The number of dairy cows increased by over 29% in the period 2013 to 2019″.
I doubt there will be any milk shortage soon.
Still not getting my vote.
So the poisoning of our drinking water is to continue!
Nice break from the constant banging sound of rock-breakers with the farmers away protesting. Every cloud has a silver lining.
If there was only some way we could grow grass in this country…
Ffg selling out future generations for a few votes . You’d meet people with more integrity in any irsh prison
Irish farmers need to stop bitching and get on with their EU overlords command.
@Gertrude Gilmore: after all their getting enough subsidies from them!
Michael McGrath…Self appointed environmentalistds… just wondering where did you get your engineering, mathematical and science degree from..(80% of all nitrates is from old sewage systems) I hope you didn’t get them by self appointing them to yourself
Michael McGrath the government is lying.. Europe is lying… the scientists are lying
Irish farmers cows are well mannered and don’t even fart.
@hi from heaven: Yeah, I just had a quick Google and it’s going back for decades.
From the Independent, 22 years ago:
“Statistics show that agriculture accounts for 65m tonnes of waste each year representing over 80pc of the country’s total”.
Plenty of other sources, but of course, according to Michael, all paid and in the pockets of the big bad EU and part of the global/European conspiracy….
I gave up red meat when I read about the increased chance of getting cancer, and I am cutting back on dairy, because of the damage it does to the environment.
@mon: make sure your milk is organic anyways.
@mon: it won’t help you. You’ll get it off your phone
Joe McKenna…I said a couple of weeks, probably should have been more exact.. they can kill the calf at 8 weeks old and they do.. what a fulfilling life the calf had at that stage…
It is to save money that they are killed at this age
@hi from heaven: There is no veal industry in ireland. What is so difficult about that?
There would be no problem if the Goddam farmers would stop allowing fertilizers to pollute our rivers.
Just who produces the food you eat,think about it before posting stupid uneducated comments just to sound like Nob who doesn’t know where ur crap goes when u flush the toilet it goes straight in to the nearest river but that’s fine isn’t it. When farmers are gone which they will in the next 20 years they will not be able to be blamed for everything. Irish farmers produce the best food ,if farmers are not able to make a good wage you will be hungry,naked and sober NO FARMERS NO FOOD
Unfortunate that the EU agreed to take all Ukrainian grain thus undermining the EU market price, supported by most governments, as a way to alleviate Russian control over world markets. An obvious geopolitical intervention but the IFA decided the 2% who produce more slurry than there ground can possibly utilise are the ones to make a stand about. 98% of farmers think this is ridiculous.
We got a few million from the EU but gave away everything in return . Thanks FFG for literally destroying our country
Get orf moi land…
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