The Dáil's disciplinary committee has ruled that Mary Lou McDonald abused her parliamentary privilege when she named six former politicians as being accused of alleged tax evasion.
The Committee on Procedures and Privileges (CPP) says the Sinn Fein deputy leader should not have named six former politicians, who were alleged to have evaded taxes by having accounts at Ansbacher Bank.
Deputy McDonald named the former politicians on December 3rd when discussing the allegations of civil service whistleblower Gerry Ryan.
The six politicians - Des O'Malley, Ray McSharry, Gerard Collins, Máire-Geoghan Quinn, Richie Ryan, and "an S Barrett" - were named in a dossier compiled by Mr Ryan and sent to the Public Accounts Committee, of which Deputy McDonald is a member.
The CPP's final ruling was made last week and formally notified to TDs yesterday.
The committee began an investigation the week after Deputy McDonald made her remarks, after complaints by Fianna Fáil whip Seán Ó Fearghaíl and by a number of the politicians named in the chamber.
Deputy McDonald replied to the committee with a three-page letter in which she argued that she was "well within her constitutional rights" to bring the allegations to the floor of the Dáil, especially as there was no other "parliamentary channel" for her to raise them given that the Public Accounts Committee had decided to drop its own inquiry.
However the committee met again last month and ruled that "Deputy McDonald’s utterances that they were in the nature of being defamatory" and "prima facie an abuse of privilege."
It wrote to the Dublin Central TD asking her to formally withdraw the comments, but she replied insisting that her use of privilege was fully in line with the Dáil's own internal rules - and lambasted her colleagues for not dealing with the points raised in her defence.
But meeting last week, the CPP interpreted McDonald's reply as an indication she would not be willing to withdraw the comments. and therefore issued its findings against her.
TDs have now formally been notified that Deputy McDonald's comments would have been defamatory if she'd made them outside the Dáil chamber.
