Water charge protestors stop mayor from visiting transplant daughter for over an hour
The Mayor of Fingal has said that water charge protestors prevented her from visiting her sick daughter in hospital by stopping her from leaving a council meeting for more than an hour.
Mags Murray, whose 26-year-old daughter Aoife has been sick since she was 11, said that she was verbally abused by protestors who stopped her from leaving the council's car park on Monday night.
Aoife is awaiting a liver transplant and has complications which include an enlarged spleen which is putting pressure on her circulatory system, causing excessive bleeding.
The Mayor of Fingal said: "I was trying to get to my daughter Aoife in St Vincent's Hospital and these people would not let me out."
The council meeting finished at 8pm, but it was 9.20pm before the mayor and other council staff were able to leave.
The Fianna Fáil representative said: "When I told them my daughter was sick one of them said, 'if your f***ing daughter is that sick what are you f***ing doing here'. It was unbelievable.
"I felt insulted as a mother, not because of my title. I try to attend to all my responsibilities and I had promised Aoife I would go and see her."
Ms Murray said another person was also abused when they pleaded with the protesters on her behalf. She claimed the protestors said: "'Well she can get a bleedin' taxi because she's not getting out of here,' they were told."
She said council staff had been at the offices in Swords "just doing their jobs" for the whole day.
She said: "They had been there 12 hours. It was terrible."
