A FORMER SINN Féin TD in Kildare South has said that her shock resignation was in response to the party “undermining” her.

Patricia Ryan, who left the party earlier this week, said Sinn Féin asked her to take down a Facebook post in which she said she’d written to the defence minister Micheál Martin about an encampment on the Curragh.

She also claimed that party members sought to “vet” questions she was going to ask leader Mary Lou McDonald at a meeting.

Ryan had been working with Sinn Féin for 15 years, having been one of the people who set up the Grey Abbey Cumann in Kildare.

She told Kildare Today on KFM that ultimately she felt pushed out by national leadership because they “don’t listen”.

The Facebook post in question was labelled “dog whistling” by Sinn Féin local election candidate and Irish Traveller James Stokes who texted in to the programme. 

Ryan said the post was “in no way aimed at being racist” and that she wrote to the Tánaiste because constituents had expressed concern about the encampment.

“The people in County Kildare want to make sure that their amenities are kept clean … and that the taxpayers money is not paying to pick up the mess,” she said.

“So whether the people that are in the party believe I’m doing a bad job or a good job, you have to be able to portray what you’re doing for the people who come through your office door.”

She said it is “wrong” for party members and leadership to ask a TD to take down a social media post.

“There has to be respect, both from me and from them,” she said.

Ryan maintains that there was never a falling out between her and other party members and that her decision was not based on the fact that another Sinn Féin candidate, newly-elected councillor Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh, is now running in the same constituency.

Following Ryan’s announcement of her resignation, Sinn Féin’s chief whip Pádraig MacLochlainn said he was “disappointed”. 

“The convention for the Kildare South Constituency will take place next week, with nominations opening tomorrow morning,” he said.

“This is likely to be a contested convention. We encouraged Patricia to seek the nomination but she was unwilling to do so.”

Ryan admitted that concerns were raised about how little her second constituency office, located in Athy, was open.

She said that one of her staff members there became sick and Ryan “couldn’t be two places at once”.

She added that, after breaking her shoulder last year, she was unable to drive until March and her husband wasn’t always available to take her to the office.

Ryan was first elected to the Dáil in 2020, having served on Kildare County Council in the year before that. 

She topped the poll in the constituency in 2020, despite being abroad on holiday for some of the election campaign.