“I retract the tweet unreservedly.”
Fine Gael’s leader in the Seanad Regina Doherty has issued an apology for a tweet she published about Sinn Fein’s Finance Spokesperson Pearse Doherty.
In the statement, posted to Doherty’s Twitter account on Tuesday (22 March), she said she retracts the tweet posted last month.
The apology in full reads:
“On the 1st of February, I published a tweet concerning Pearse Doherty TD in which I made an allegation against him that he had encouraged others to break the law by attending the funeral of the late Bobby Storey.
“I retract the tweet unreservedly and the allegation it made about Mr Doherty.
“I genuinely regret the upset I have caused him.”
— Regina Doherty (@ReginaDo) March 22, 2022
At the time of writing on early Tuesday afternoon, Pearse Doherty has not responded to the statement.
The funeral of Bobby Storey took place in June 2020 in Belfast when strict Covid-19 regulations were in place.
Around 2,000 people lined the streets of the city for the funeral, including a number of Sinn Féin politicians, leading to allegations of Covid breaches, though no charges were brought by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).
Main images via Sasko Lazarov and Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie
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