Phil Flanagan

Phil Flanagan (born 16 July 1984) is a Sinn Féin politician in Ireland who was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in May 2011. He lost his seat at the 2016 election. He represented Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Assembly constituency) and was the Sinn Féin party spokesperson on Enterprise, Trade and Investment.

Flanagan also served as a councillor on Fermanagh District Council following his co-option in 2009 ^[3] and re-election in May 2011. He resigned from his council seat in August 2011 in line with Sinn Féin party policy on dual mandates and was subsequently replaced on the council by Stephen Huggett.^[4]

Flanagan lives in Tempo, is originally from Garrison, County Fermanagh and was educated at St Michael's College, Enniskillen. He is a former retail manager and small-business owner.^[5]

In references to the Seán Quinn case, Flanagan stated that, "It is not up to the media, to politicians or to anyone else to determine the outcome of this case. That decision needs to be made by a judge and the sooner that happens and a clear outcome is decided, the better it will be for all concerned."^[6]

In December 2015 it was announced that Mr Flanagan would not run in the May 2016 Assembly elections when he failed to gain the necessary support from delegates at a Fermanagh South Tyrone constituency selection convention.^[7] In January 2016, at a re-convened selection convention, he was put back on the party ticket at the expense of Michelle Gildernew.^[8]

In February 2016 Sinn Féin decided to run an extra candidate in Fermanagh South Tyrone and the extremely popular Gildernew was added back on to party ticket.^[9]

During the Assembly election on the 5th of May 2016 Mr Flanagan polled 3,449 first preference votes, lost his seat and was the first Sinn Féin candidate to be eliminated from the count.^[10]

Controversies

Since being elected to the Assembly Flanagan has been involved in a number of controversies, a lot of which involved social media.

In 2011 it was revealed that Flanagan had been suspended from his previous employment during a probe into higher than usual expenditure from the shops petty cash. He denied any wrongdoing and said the £2000 of petty cash had been used to buy coffee and tea as the shop had no kitchen unlike other shops in their chain.^[11]

In 2012 he tweeted remarks about Tom Elliott and Mike Nesbitt being "clampits." Also in 2012 he posted a comment on Facebook about the village of Clabby being a "black hole." ^[12] In 2012 he also referred to Enniskillen, a town he represents, looking "like crap" in a tweet.^[13]

In July 2013 Phil Flanagan retweeted a sexually explicit comment about the birth of Prince George.^[14] He later removed the retweet saying that he "misconstrued the meaning" of the tweet and apologised "for any offence that this may have caused anyone.".^[15]

In 2014 Mr Flanagan tweeted comments about Tom Elliott's career in the UDR which he later removed from Twitter.^[16] In January 2016 the MLA agreed to apologise and pay compensation and legal costs to Mr Elliott over the defamatory message. The apology read: "On May 1st 2014 I posted a tweet alleging that Tom Elliott was responsible for harassing and shooting people during his service with the UDR. I now accept this was untrue and wholly without foundation and I apologise for all offence caused." ^[17]

In February 2015 he tweeted comments suggesting that William of Orange was a terrorist.^[18]

In August 2015 he tweeted that a public sector organisation (Roads Service) resurfaced a road for the 12 of July and yet wouldn't be aware that a major GAA game was being played. He refused to apologise for his remarks saying he was only joking.^[19]

Also in August 2015 he got into a war of words on Twitter with Máiría Cahill which resulted in him tweeting the following apology, "I'm sorry if my tweet earlier caused any upset or offence." ^[20]

In November 2015 when asked whether ISIS were terrorists he said he was not comfortable with the way organisations were demonised by being labelled terrorists. When he was later criticised for his remarks he stated on his Twitter account that he believed ISIS to be terrorists.^[21]

Court Case and Damages

On 1 May 2014 Mr Flanagan tweeted the following comment; “Tom Elliot talks to @StephenNolan about the past. I wonder if he will reveal how many people he harassed or shot as a member of the UDR.” He removed the tweet one hour later after it was seen by 167 of his followers with six of them re-tweeting it.^[22]

After Mr Elliott was made aware of the tweet his solicitors contacted Mr Flanagan asking for an apology and damages but received no reply. Mr Elliott then issued legal proceedings in June 2014 which resulted in Mr Flanagan agreeing that he would publish an apology on Twitter and that damages should be agreed. Although agreeing to offer an apology and agree damages this never materialised and Mr Elliott proceeded to court to enforce the agreement that was made. This came to court in January 2016.^[23]

On 8 January 2016 Mr Flanagan agreed, in court, to apologise and pay compensation and legal costs to Mr Elliott over the defamatory message posted on Twitter. The apology which was posted on Twitter read: "On May 1st 2014 I posted a tweet alleging that Tom Elliott was responsible for harassing and shooting people during his service with the UDR. I now accept this was untrue and wholly without foundation and I apologise for all offence caused." ^[24]

The damages were not decided on until 3 February 2016.^[25] The Judge awarded damages of £75,000 because of the serious nature of the defamation, Mr Flanagan initially ignoring Mr Elliott's solicitors, his refusal to offer an apology until the date of the hearing and his failure to make an offer of compensation.^[26]

The judge than reduced the award by 35% which brought it down to £48,750 because of Mr Flanagan's apology and offer to use the amends procedure. The Judge said he would have reduced it by "fifty percent if the response had been in an appropriate timescale, if the defendant had actually published the apology and if he had offered a realistic amount in compensation.” .^[27]

The Stormont Assembly insurers, AIG, refused to indemnify Mr Flanagan for the damages or costs of the case so he sued them. On the 1st of June 2016 Mr Justice Stevens ruled that AIG did not have to cover him because the comments about Mr Elliott were so obviously defamatory. ^[28]

The result of the 1st of June ruling means that Phil Flanagan will have to pay the £48,750 to Tom Elliott, all Mr Elliott's legal expenses in his case and all of AIG's expenses in their case. He also has to pay his own expenses from both cases.^[29]

Stormont Standards Commissioner

It is known that at least two complaints ^[30][31] have been made about Phil Flanagan to the Stormont Standards Commissioner with one other person at least threatening to report him for comments he made.^[32]

If a complaint is not found to be admissible the complaint is not made public and nothing comes from it. If the Commissioner finds the complaint to be admissible he will investigate the complaint and send his findings to the Committee for Standards and Privileges.^[33]

Only one complaint about Mr Flanagan has been found admissible so far, which was his re-tweeting of the following joke; "The news says that the duchess doll entered the hospital by the back entrance. If William had done the same we wouldn’t have to suffer this balls.”

Although the NI Assembly Commissioner for Standards thought it worth investigating he found that Phil Flanagan had not broken the Code of Conduct for MLAs.

In his report the commissioner was critical of Mr Flanagan, stating that "while Mr Flanagan’s retweet was offensive it was a crude ‘joke’ which demeaned Mr Flanagan rather than the Royal Family." He also stated that it was "hard to accept" when Mr Flanagan claimed "that he initially believed the original tweet to be an innocent joke." He went on to say his "explanation may in the eyes of some have cast doubt on Mr Flanagan’s integrity." ^[34]

References

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-politics-34390202

http://fermanaghherald.com/2015/03/photoshop-phil-makes-sure-he-gets-in-on-the-act/ http://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sunday-life/im-no-thief-28626101.html