Former Olympic boxer Kenneth Egan has accused Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald of being “happy to sit back” and let her constituency “be impacted by gangland crime”.
Mr Egan, now a Fine Gael Councillor, has called on Ms McDonald to donate a €1,000 donation received from convicted gangland criminal Jonathan Dowdall to a community fund.
Mr Dowdall was sentenced to four years in jail for his part in the Regency Hotel shooting in 2016 in October.
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Dowdall (44) admitted that he assisted a criminal gang to commit the murder of David Byrne.
He previously served as a Sinn Féin councillor. Dowdall also made a €1,000 donation to Ms McDonald’s Dublin Central constituency in 2011.
Mr Egan, who won a bronze Olympic medal for boxing at the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing, has now called for Ms McDonald to donate €1,000 to a community fund for those affected by gangland crimes.
“Deputy McDonald knows well the devastating impact of gangland crime on inner city Dublin,” he said.
“She talks a big talk about protecting the younger generations but is happy to sit back and let communities in her own area be impacted by gangland crime when she has the means to help prevent this.
“Is Mary Lou on the side of communities, or is she only interested in keeping this money for her own coffers?”
His calls were echoed by Fine Gael TDs Neale Richmond and Fergus O’Dowd.
Mr Richmond said that gangland criminals are a “plague on local communities”.
“That Sinn Féin’s leader accepted a €1,000 donation from Jonathan Dowdall, the man who facilitated the most brutal gangland murder Ireland has seen and as she herself admitted, probably used it towards election expenses is appalling,” he said.
“The fact that she has not made a more legitimate use of this donation such as to make our communities safer is staggering; she must put this wrong to right.
Ms McDonald said that she was “profoundly shocked” when she learned of Dowdall’s links to gangland crime and the Regency Hotel killing.
She said at her party’s Ard Fheis last week that he would not have been allowed in Sinn Féin or near the party if she had known.
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