has acknowledged that she did<\/a> do work for financial institutions but has refused to clarify if that involved cases where evictions were being sought.<\/p>\n\u201cIn the course of my life as a barrister I took all types of work, that\u2019s the role of a barrister. You take work from everywhere you get it and you do your best,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
During the exchange, Ms Connolly accused AnnMarie Folan of shouting at her, which Ms Folan said was \u201cuntrue as is clear in the video \u2013 and was only being said because she didn\u2019t want to answer a straight question.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I believe we know the answer to that question now,\u201d Ms Folan said. Ms Connolly, who had been elected as TD in Galway West, is heard in the video saying she is going to walk away after the questionning, to which Ms Folan replies, \u201cthat\u2019s what you all do, you walk away\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ms Folan said that she and her husband had become friendly with community activist Ken Smollen from Offaly, well known for outreaches to people in difficulties, whom they had met initially at a meeting to do with water charges in Galway.<\/p>\n
\u201cKen was going to the courthouse in Galway to support people who were being evicted, often because they had fallen behind,\u201d she told Gript. \u201cWe met at the courthouse, and one person said they were surprised to see that Catherine Connolly was acting as barrister for the bank inside. We were astonished to hear that too. There was her bicycle outside the courthouse, we were gobsmacked, we couldn\u2019t believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen, I saw Catherine Connolly on television saying how terrible it was that people were losing their homes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why, when I saw her at the community event for 1916 that was taking place in Shantalla, I approached her. I wanted to ask her a straight question and see what her answer was.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was appalled that she started accusing me of shouting. She made herself out to be the victim in the video simply because she didn\u2019t want to answer me. If it wasn\u2019t true, why didn\u2019t she just say that?\u201d said Ms Folan.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe said the claims were poisonous: I think it has been shown that when she doesn\u2019t want to answer something she accuses the questioner. She kept accusing me of shouting at her, but I wasn\u2019t,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was the same way about the young [Elijah] Burke lad, claiming he was shouting in Galway University when the video clearly showed he wasn\u2019t. She sat there smiling smugly while Garda\u00ed were brought in to get him out. And then she said on Tipp FM that he was shouting when he wasn\u2019t. Would she like that done to one of her own children?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt disgusts me that she is now running for President when she behaved like that with me, refusing to answer a straight question. I felt she was being evasive \u2013 and now I feel I\u2019ve been proved right in this Presidential campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was so dismissive and rude, I was asking an important question, and she showed her real character there. She only claiming I was shouting \u2013 and I wasn\u2019t \u2013 to shut me up, to make me feel embarrassed, because she didn\u2019t want to answer the question,\u201d Ms Folan added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe President needs to be someone who answers questions honestly and respects the people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe truth will always comes to light,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo many of us feel that none of the political representatives are held accountable for anything they are doing or saying. They feel they are above reproach, that they aren\u2019t answerable to anyone\u201d.<\/p>\n
The council of The Bar of Ireland defended Ms Connolly last week after she faced questions about whether she acted as a barrister for banks in repossession cases.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is the duty of barristers to be independent and free from any influence, especially such as may arise from their personal interests or external pressure, in the discharge of their professional duties as barristers,\u201d it said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cBarristers cannot discriminate in favour of or against any person availing, or seeking to avail, of the services of the barrister on the grounds of race, colour, sex, sexual orientation, language, politics, religion, nationality, national or social origin, national minority, birth or other status.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Connolly for President campaign have been asked for comment.<\/p>\n
Commenting on the controversy last week, Fine Gael Cllr Frank Fahy said: \u201cAs far back as 2014, I asked then Cllr Connolly about representing the banks in the council chamber in 2014 when we were both local representatives for our homeplace.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBarristers work on all cases \u2013 that is their job. But Deputy Connolly should at least admit what work she did openly without having it dragged from her,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Shantalla woman, whose 2016 exchange with Catherine Connolly shows the presidential candidate becoming agitated when questioned about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3656,46180,42,43,55836,40,38,41,39,644],"class_list":{"0":"post-87235","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-catherine-connolly","9":"tag-evictions","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-repossessions","13":"tag-top-news","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topnews","16":"tag-topstories","17":"tag-video"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87235","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=87235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}