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Máire Devine Sam Boal via RollingNews.ie

Senator who retweeted post calling IRA victim 'sadist' returns to SF after three-month ban

Senator Máire Devine issued an apology to the family of Brian Stack in the Seanad following the incident.

SENATOR MÁIRE DEVINE is to return to Sinn Féin today after being suspended three months ago for comments she made on Twitter about a prison officer killed by the IRA in the 1980s.

On 18 March, Devine had retweeted a tweet from a parody government account which referred to Brian Stack as a “sadist”.

The post read: “Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has congratulated Gerry Adams after the people of New York celebrated #GerryAdamsDay.

“Leo had no response to criticism in the #Sindo from a #SaveThe8th Fianna Fáil son of a sadist prison officer.”

Before apologising for the tweet, Devine sent follow-up tweets that appeared to accuse Brian Stack’s son Austin of being overly-sensitive about the issue.

She was subsequently suspended from Sinn Féin for a period of three months, which ends today.

In a statement to TheJournal.ie, a Sinn Féin spokesperson said: “Yes, Máire Devine’s suspension will be finished [today] and she will return to the party.

“Máire Devine has apologised by public statement at the time of the tweet. She has also apologised on the record of the Seanad at her earliest opportunity. Mary Lou McDonald also issued a statement at the time on the matter.”

‘Catastrophic error of judgement’

At the time of the incident, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said Devine made a “catastrophic error of judgement” by retweeting the post.

“I have zero tolerance for people or actions that bring grief to the victims or to their families and I want to apologise sincerely to the family of the late Brian Stack,” McDonald said.

“Senator Devine understands fully that she made a catastrophic error of judgement in retweeting something that came from a made-up account. And she further made the error of gainsaying the hurt felt by Brain Stack’s son in a series of exchanges.”

Speaking in the Seanad on 27 March, Devine said she wanted to issue an unreserved apology to the Stack family.

“On Sunday 18 March, I retweeted what I thought to be a genuine tweet without reading the full content of that tweet.

A number of follow-up tweets from me were wholly inappropriate, and I deeply regret that.
I want to apologise for any and all offence and hurt caused from my Twitter activity. It was never my intention to cause any more hurt to those in deep distress. I want to put on record my most sincere apologies to the family of the late Brian Stack.

Brian Stack

Brian Stack was chief prison officer at Portlaoise Prison when he was shot dead while leaving a boxing match in Dublin in 1983.

He died from his injuries 18 months later.

Austin Stack, who alongside his brother Ollie led a campaign to find out who killed their father, has repeatedly called for Devine to resign from her position as Senator over the affair.

Speaking to TheJournal.ie yesterday, Stack said that he is “disgusted” that Devine is being allowed to return to the party.

“I believe that it was a resigning matter, I believe that Sinn Féin should have dismissed her from the party and should have taken moves to permanently have her removed from the party,” Stack said.

Stack added that Devine has made no contact with himself or his families members since the incident and has not issued a personal apology to them.

“The fact that she has made no attempt whatsoever to contact myself or my family to apologise, we as a family and me personally, I would be disgusted if Máire Devine was allowed to return to Sinn Féin,” he said.

“I’m the type of individual that if somebody reaches out to me in a genuine effort, I would meet that person halfway, but this individual has not done that,” Stack said, speaking of whether he would have accepted her apology had she reached out to him.

“By readmitting Máire Devine to the party, they will again rub salt in the wounds of the victims.”

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    Mute garretcollins
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    Aug 11th 2011, 3:22 PM

    @ Tal

    It says all viruses.

    Arthritis is not a virus however, it’s an inflammatory disorder.

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    Mute Tal Tallon
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    Aug 11th 2011, 2:25 PM

    If it really works, then it could be very good.

    I wonder is it only recently contracted viruses or could it be used against someone who has arthritis for years?

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    Mute Andy
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    Aug 11th 2011, 7:07 PM

    Since when is Arthritis a virus?

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    Mute Tommy Murphy
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    Aug 12th 2011, 12:28 AM

    What an idiot!!! Give urself a big wet slap in the face

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    Mute Lenny Sloane
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    Aug 11th 2011, 8:56 PM

    Would be amazing if it can ultimately kill the HIV and Aids virus.

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    Mute Oisín Ó Dálaigh
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    Aug 11th 2011, 3:50 PM

    “A new drug called DRACO…”

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    Mute Shane McCarthy
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    Aug 11th 2011, 2:41 PM

    Dangerous stuff. What happens if the bugs become immune, we could all end up being much worse.

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    Mute Sarah Hempenstall
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    Aug 11th 2011, 4:33 PM

    Looking at the paper; they target the virus by inducing programmed cell death (or apoptosis) in infected cells. The reason bacteria become resistant is that you are killing off the bacteria with a compound that you can tolerate but the bacteria cannot. The problem is that you’ll eventually come up against a bacterium that has innate immunity to a certain antibiotic and won’t be killed. Then it will divide and multiply and produce a big whack of resistant bacteria and, because of something called horizontal gene transfer, they can transfer resistance into bacteria that were not resistant at the start. A bacterium is a cell in and of itself and can reporoduce-a virus can’t. It reproduces ONLY by hijacking the cell it has infected. If what this group in MIT have developed works it will target and kill off infected cells. Since the viral marker they target is dsRNA, something the virus produces as it reproduces, it looks pretty unlikely a virus could ever, ever develop resistance simply because it can’t exist without producing dsRNA. dsRNA is not produced by healthy cells so it looks like a good marker. It’s early days but it looks like an elegant solution to a problem that kills and injures millions. Don’t be so negative and immediately assume we’ll all be worse off!

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    Mute Colin Rodgers
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    Aug 12th 2011, 10:31 AM

    Pretty sure this is how Zombie Apocalypses start.

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    Mute Brian McGuinness
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    Aug 12th 2011, 8:36 AM

    This would put a selection pressure on viruses forcing any more virulent mutations to ultimately survive, reproduce and beat anything we can throw at them. In short we’re talking the end of the world here folks. On the bright side, the weather’s supposed to be not too bad for the weekend. Yay!

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    Mute Tal Tallon
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    Aug 12th 2011, 9:37 AM

    Shit, I meant long term virus’s… Ah well

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