Kildare TD Patricia Ryan said she felt pushed to resign from Sinn Féin as she felt she was not being listened to – and she questioned some processes in the political party, including having questions to party leader Mary Lou McDonald “vetted”.
The former Sinn Féin TD said she was “curtailed”, “undermined” and “intimidated”.
Ms Ryan, who was first elected to the Dáil in 2020, resigned from the party this week and will contest the next election as an independent.
Speaking on the Kildare Today programme on Kfm Radio, Ms Ryan said the decision was not an easy one to make having worked for Sinn Féin in a voluntary capacity for 15 years.
Ms Ryan said she had been “unhappy for quite a while” within the party, describing her decision to resign as a “very hard” one to make and one she has been reckoning with for the past 18 months.
In 2019, she was elected to Kildare County Council, before being elected to the Dáil in 2020 having topped the poll in Kildare South.
However, her relationship with the party has come to a bitter end as she tendered her resignation earlier this week and announced on Friday that she would finish her term as TD for Kildare South as an Independent and will also run as an Independent candidate in the upcoming elections.
“I suppose if you’re not happy within the structure, well then you have to move on,” she said.
“There were a few issues I wasn’t happy with. I felt that there were issues within the grassroots of the party in Kildare South and that the party wasn’t dealing with those issues, and despite having asked the party to deal with the issues for quite a while, it was left to fester.
“I felt that if issues were not being dealt with, I couldn’t work to the full capacity that I was elected to do and I felt it either had to be sorted or I had to go.”
Ms Ryan insisted there was “never a falling out” but she felt “curtailed” in what she could post on social media, using the example of an “encampment in the Curragh”, an issue which she said a number a constituents had raised with her.
Ms Ryan said she wrote to Defence Minister Micheál Martin about the issue and shared this information on her Facebook page, adding that she had been “asked to take it down by the grassroots of the members” as her posts had “hurt some members of the party”.
“I felt A, why was I being asked to take down stuff I was putting up because I was helping? B, it was my social media, it wasn’t theirs and C, I was elected to do a job and if I’m going to be curtailed and put in a position that I can’t do that job, well I’m not doing the job people elected me to do.”
Ms Ryan told KFM that she also took issue with having questions to party leader Mary Lou McDonald “vetted” before a member could ask them.
“There were other issues around asking members if they were going to a meeting, to come along and to say, ‘Well, we would really like to see your questions before you ask the leader.’
“Why would you ask somebody that’s a member of a party to come along and have their questions vetted that they’re going to ask the leader of the party? If you’re a member of a party, you should be able to openly and equally ask that question without it being curtailed.”
She also believed the party did not listen when told by members that it had taken the wrong position on the family and care referendums, adding that Sinn Féin admitted they got it wrong “a little too late”.
Ms Ryan said her feelings about the party and her membership have been “rumbling for about 18 months”.
“I have had many, many sleepless nights over this and many, many hard decisions. I worked for Sinn Féin for the last 15 years in a voluntary capacity initially, then I came up and became a councillor and then a TD so this isn’t something that I would rest easy with.”
She added: “If you have a situation where you have members in any party who are undermining a sitting TD by what they do then you have a problem.”
Asked whether she felt “pushed” to resign, Ms Ryan said: “Yes, I do. I absolutely do. I feel that when you go to somebody and you ask them for help because they are not sorting out internal issues and that help is not forthcoming, you either stick with your integrity and do what you think is the right thing for you and your constituents, or you stay put and do nothing.”
She said she felt pushed by the national leadership of the party – but not party leader Mary Lou McDonald – as issues she raised were not addressed.
“I feel we’re down in the polls because they don’t listen to those of us who are asking them to listen and it’s unfortunate.”
Ms Ryan said the party wanted her to contest the upcoming selection convention for Kildare South but she believed she could not continue in the party.
She emphasised that she did not feel pushed by party leader Mary Lou McDonald, but that Ms McDonald “assured me that they would look into everything and would get things addressed” when they last spoke four weeks ago.
“I don’t feel pushed (by Ms McDonald). I feel I’m leaving because I feel I’m not the right fit anymore for the party and it doesn’t sit comfortably with me and that’s why I’m leaving.”
She said the party is not performing well in the polls because “they’re not listening to members and they’re not listening to some of their TDs.”
“I can’t sit here and lie. I have to say it like it is. This is my feeling. Others may disagree with this and that’s their prerogative to do that but this is how I feel and this is where I’m going.”
The Irish Independent have contacted the Sinn Féin party for a response.