{"id":24261,"date":"2025-09-16T05:07:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T05:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/24261\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T05:07:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T05:07:07","slug":"hayes-apologises-for-wearing-brown-makeup-in-obama-impersonation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/24261\/","title":{"rendered":"Hayes apologises for wearing \u2018brown makeup\u2019 in Obama impersonation"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Social Democrat TD has apologised for wearing \u201cbrown makeup\u201d on his face while dressing up as Barack Obama for Halloween 16 years ago.<\/p>\n

Eoin Hayes said a newspaper intended to publish the images on Tuesday and described the incident as a \u201chuge mistake\u201d.<\/p>\n

The TD, who said he worked on the former US president\u2019s re-election campaign in 2012, said he takes full responsibility for his \u201ccompletely inappropriate\u201d actions and condemned racism \u201cin all its forms\u201d.<\/p>\n

While I didn’t have an understanding of how hurtful it was at the time, I came to recognise that in the intervening years and am so profoundly sorry. What I did was completely inappropriate and a huge mistake<\/p>\n

Eoin Hayes <\/p>\n

In a statement on X, Mr Hayes said: \u201cAt a Halloween party 16 years ago, while president of the Students\u2019 Union in University College Cork, I dressed up as someone greatly admired at the time, US president Barack Obama \u2013 whose re-election campaign I went on to work for in 2012.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs part of this costume, I wore brown makeup on my face and hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been told that a news outlet has photographs of this event, which they will publish tomorrow.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I didn\u2019t have an understanding of how hurtful it was at the time, I came to recognise that in the intervening years and am so profoundly sorry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I did was completely inappropriate and a huge mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Hayes added: \u201cI condemn racism in all its forms and do not condone that behaviour under any circumstances.<\/p>\n

\u201cI take full responsibility for my actions and from the bottom of my heart, I apologise for any and all hurt caused by what did and the images\u00a0of\u00a0that\u00a0night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Hayes was recently reinstated to the Social Democrats parliamentary party after being suspended over incorrect statements about shares he held in a company linked to the Israeli military.<\/p>\n

He said he should not have held the shares as long as he did and has donated the equivalent of 43,443 euros to three aid organisations working in Gaza.<\/p>\n

He said the amount reflected the increase in the value of the shares he held over the course of Israel\u2019s military offensive in Gaza.<\/p>\n

The Social Democrats won 11 seats in November\u2019s election but Mr Hayes was indefinitely suspended from the parliamentary party in December \u2013 just a month after being elected.<\/p>\n

He had initially told the media and his party colleagues that he divested shares in his former employer, Palantir Technologies, prior to being elected to Dublin City Council last June.<\/p>\n

The company supplies technology to Israel\u2019s military.<\/p>\n

But he later revealed that he sold the shares last July \u2013 after taking office \u2013 for a pre-tax figure of \u20ac199,000.<\/p>\n

The Social Democrats had been calling for economic sanctions against Israel months before Mr Hayes\u2019s election to the council.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Jim<\/p>\n

Ireland<\/p>\n

Jim Gavin says Government action on housing \u2018not good enough\u2019<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The Dublin Bay South TD\u2019s suspension was reviewed by the national executive of the party before being considered further by the parliamentary party.<\/p>\n

The suspension was lifted in July.<\/p>\n

Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns is due to speak to the media in Dublin at the party\u2019s annual think-in on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Social Democrat TD has apologised for wearing \u201cbrown makeup\u201d on his face while dressing up as Barack…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-24261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}