SINN FÉIN LEADER Mary Lou McDonald has said the party will speak with Laois Councillor Caroline Stanley, wife of ex-Sinn Féin TD Brian Stanley, in the new year, telling The Journal “there are issues there that need to get ironed out”.
Caroline Dwane Stanley has been a Sinn Féin councillor for Portlaoise since 2011, having been co-opted onto the council following her husband’s election to the Dáil.
In October, when her husband was in the midst of controversy having only recently left the party, she was nominated by Sinn Féin to be their sole representative on the Committee of the Regions in Europe.
The committee is primarily a consultative and advisory body representing local and regional government at EU level and nominees must be elected representatives of regional or local bodies.
Brian Stanley was a high-profile TD for Sinn Féin before his resignation from the party in October after a fallout stemming from an internal investigation the party was carrying out after a complaint was made against him at the end of July “by a longstanding member of the party”.
The complaint was not criminal, the Sinn Féín leader said at the time, but McDonald said it was “very, very serious”. McDonald told the Dáil that the matter had been referred to gardaí after Stanley raised a counter-complaint.
Stanley deemed it a “kangaroo court” at the time and announced that he would be leaving the party after 40 years of membership. He went on to take a seat in the Laois constituency as an Independent TD.
The final elimination of Sinn Féin candidate Maria McCormack allowed Stanley to be elected.
Speaking at the count centre upon her husband’s re-election, Caroline Stanley told RTÉ that she she still had questions for Sinn Féin about their conduct, stating that she will not quit the party.
“I want questions answered and then I will make my decision. I’m going nowhere. I won’t be driven out,” she said earlier this month.
She said her family had been trying to deal with things as a family in the background.
“I think any woman, particularly the first reaction you’re going to do as a parent, as a wife, is to try and protect your family. For me, my husband, his children and granddaughter are my priority and everything else comes after that,” she told RTÉ.
She went on to state that she and her husband “ran a very positive campaign” and they didn’t engage in any “shenanigans” with anyone in the constituency race.
In an interview with the Sinn Féin leader this week, McDonald outlined the next steps her party would be taking regarding Caroline Stanley.
“I think we need to be just very conscious of a couple of things. First of all, Caroline is her own woman. She’s not just an appendage to her husband. He’s been elected here [in Leinster House]. She’s up supporting him. This is a human thing as well.
“So I think we just need to be just a little bit decent about that. There are issues that have arisen around herself and all of that, and I’m conscious of, what we’re going to do is get Christmas out of the way.
“Let everybody have their down time and their family time, and then we’ll talk to Caroline in the in the new year,” said McDonald.
When asked by The Journal if she had spoken to Caroline since the controversy unfolded, McDonald said:
“No, I haven’t. I haven’t had reason to be speaking to her, but we will be in communication with her come the new year. I understand like it’s a dilemma. I could only imagine it’s a dilemma for her, but she’s still, as we’re meeting, she’s a member of Sinn Fein. She’s a counsellor. Her husband isn’t in Sinn Fein. So you can only imagine the kind of complicated dynamic.”
When asked if Caroline had the support of the party, McDonald said:
“I think she had a level of, I think most people looking at that situation would say that’s a very tricky one for anyone on a human level, right? But as regards Sinn Féin and herself as a member, there are issues there that need to get ironed out. We will do that after Christmas, but I’m not surprised that she was here supporting her husband. Like, why would she not do that.”
Asked if there is to any sort of motion of confidence in the councillor, McDonald said “there isn’t actually a provision for anybody to move a motion of no confidence in anyone, so that’s not going to happen”.
The Journal asked Caroline Stanley to comment on what matters needed to be “ironed out”, from her perspective, and if it is her intention to remain on as a Sinn Féin councillor.
“I can confirm I have heard nothing from Sinn Féin in five months. I have not been made aware of any consultations to take place in January.”
When asked to comment further on the matter, she stated: “I don’t have anything else to say for now.”
With reporting by Jane Matthews
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