2024 Remembered: Brian Stanley: ‘I have a family, I have a wife, I have children … they have been a source of immense strength’

Brian Stanley has said that his family have been a “source of immense strength” over the past couple of weeks since his high-profile resignation from Sinn Féin.

A Sinn Féin member for more than 40 years – and a TD since 2011 – he left the party in a blaze of controversy last month and will contest this General Election as an Independent Republican.

He has once again hit out strongly at Sinn Féin, how they handled the situation and the direction they have taken in recent years – and says “I have wronged very few people in my lifetime”.

In an interview in the LaoisToday office at 7.30am on Tuesday morning, he says that his wife Caroline, a councillor in Portlaoise, remains a Sinn Féin member but is supporting him in this General Election.

“I’m a human being,” he says when asked what the last number of weeks have been like in the eye of the storm. 

“I have a family, I have a wife, I have children, I have a grandchild who lives with us. She’s a teenager, and obviously we have to mind each other.

“But I have to say that they have been a source of immense strength. Each and every one of them, and relatives, across our families. We’ve been very, very lucky to have them. 

“I should be down on my knees every morning, thanking God for them. They have been absolutely fantastic, and great support. Caroline and the children, and Leah, the granddaughter, and my own family.”

He has been on his own politically since he sent a resignation statement late on the Saturday night of October 12. The phrase that brought the political world to a standstill was that an inquiry into an incident involving him was a “Kangaroo Court”.

He continues to double down on its usage.

“I wouldn’t use those words in a rash way,” he says, drawing attention again to the fact that the complaint against him was submitted on July 26, the same day that nominations opened for Sinn Féin candidates in Laois for the General Election. 

“This complaint was lodged on the 26th of July. The importance of the 26th of July is it’s the first full day of a 10-day period to nominate a candidate for Laois to run for Sinn Féin.

“It was lodged on that morning. Sinn Féin want people to believe that there was a condition there that prevented persons, the person or persons, from lodging it in the previous 10 months that relates to something in early October 2023.

“Somehow or another, these people woke up on the morning of the 26th of July, and all of the barriers that prevented them from doing it had somehow evaporated.

“But at the same time, in the days before that, a certain clique, and I use these words carefully, that there was a toxic seam running through that party, with a small clique at local level involved in it, were involved in already spreading misinformation about me, and already trying to blacken my name.

“The first opportunity I had was on the 11th of September, and myself and my legal representatives went to this. And this consisted of one person sitting in a room. It consisted of a screen in the corner with a person from the north looking out at the screen. That person flicked in and out during it.

“During the period we were there, (that person) asked no questions. And only said one word in the whole thing when they were asked by the person sitting in the room … ‘have you any questions’ at the very end. And the first word uttered was ‘no’.

“What I would say is that there was never a complaint made about me to the Gardaí. There was never anything alleged of a criminal nature. There was no crime alleged. That’s acknowledged publicly.

“There was no complaint with the Garda Síochána and the Garda Síochána confirmed that. But we did bring matters to their attention (to the inquiry). And we did bring material evidence.

“We brought a number of pieces related to a number of matters. So there’s people’s word and there’s material evidence.

“Any other organisation would have handled this differently,” he adds. “They decided to set themselves up in judge and jury. If somebody had a complaint, it should have been sent to the (Gardaí).”

The incident that brought all this on him?

“What I would say to you seriously is that, I’ve got this far in life. And I’d be able to go before my maker, right, as a Christian.

“I’d be able to go before my maker and look at him straight in the eye. And they won’t tell me that I was a saint. But I don’t believe they’ll send me – I believe they’ll open one side of the gate and let me in.

“I’ve wronged very few people in my lifetime. And those around me and people who I grew up with, one of them who was out canvassing with me yesterday, would know me. 

“People would know that I didn’t spend my life going around, you know, trying to do down anyone else in a bad way or anything like that, or I was malicious.”

When requests were made to him for €60,000 in payments by the victim, why didn’t he send it to the Gardaí?

“Well, I could have had. I could have escalated it. But I took the view, I suppose I took the view that somehow or another all would be fair and well.”

He says he was glad when Sinn Féin handed the matter over to the Gardaí but says they did so because it “had now become a political hot potato”.

Over the past year or so, he said he had been critical of Sinn Féin internally about their immigration policy, or lack of one.

“I’m one that firmly believes that genuine refugees, we need to help them. We need to help them and we need to integrate and get them into work here and everything else.

“But, I mean, your Minister for Justice saying that four out of five were going to be failed applicants. The fact that it takes three, four, five years to get them through the system is crazy stuff. And those who are not genuine – people arriving with no documents.

“The rules are not being implemented. And because of that, not only are you failing the wider Irish society, you know, because you’re allowing these abuses, but you’re also failing genuine immigrants. Because any money that’s there for that should go into having genuine ones.

“I raised it a number of times and I said, if we didn’t have a position on it – I mean it took them a year to come out with a position, which wasn’t too bad when they came out.

“There’s a number of things, you know, that the party absolutely got wrong. And a lot of it was being afraid to maybe get the wrong side of a handful of so-called opinion formers at national level in the media. And I’ve said it, you have to have your position in politics, you have to get out there, and you have to defend it.

“And that’s the one thing Sinn Féin was good at. Even when people thought we were pariahs, people often said it to me on the street – ‘you know, the one thing you have to admire about you and about Sinn Féin is that you basically stick to your position’.

“There are good people in every party and I’ve met some great people in Sinn Féin. And I’d be still talking to people who are in Sinn Féin, in the Midlands and in Laois. 

“But what I would say to you there about that is, is that the, you know, there’s good and bad everywhere. But if you get that thin, narrow seam of running through an organization … I know that there is nothing below them. And I’d say it again, they will do and have done stuff that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, and I’ve had my battles with them over the years, you know, they never done it.

“Of course everyone makes mistakes, everyone makes mistakes,” he says when asked again about the incident that brought all this bother on him.

On a scale of one to ten, how serious does he deem the incident. “I’m not going to say that. I’m not going to say that at this point. What I would say to you is, if you know, if the full information, all of which I have was in the public domain, a lot of people would be surprised. That’s all I’m saying on it.”

And when he got those texts looking for €60,000? “I let people make up their own minds on that, right. I let people make up their own minds on that.”

And his wife Caroline, who remains a member of Sinn Féin, what is the story there?

“Caroline is supporting me.”

But she’s still a member of Sinn Féin, isn’t she? “She is, yeah … I leave that to Caroline’s capable hands.”

He says the response at the doors on this occasion has “surprised me a bit”. 

“You know, I wasn’t really going to run because I thought, you know, maybe I have enough of this.

“(But) I couldn’t walk the length of myself … without somebody stopping me and saying, ‘are you running?’ 

He says he’s enjoying this campaign more than the previous ones.

“If I get over the line, great. If I don’t go over the line, you know, you move on. I’m not going to sit around with my head hanging.

“Obviously, it’d be great to win. Whether people believe this or not, but any time I was ever elected, anything – the first time I was elected as a Councillor, and the last time I was elected in 2020, when I was elected as a TD there again for Laois-Offaly, I do actually feel humbled.

“Because you’re saying to yourself, and in the quieter moments when you’re on your own maybe, you say to yourself, Jesus, you know that so many thousand people went out and put number one beside your name. 

“And the other thing, I would feel an awful, and I don’t mean this in any kind of sanctimonious way, but feel an awful desire inside me to do my best for them.

“You get a kick out of it. You know, it’s great to be able to help people. It’s great to, you know, individually or a community, and it’s great to be able to, you get great satisfaction if you get things over the line.”

SEE ALSO – Check out all our top stories from our 2024 Remembered series here