19 October 2026
Tell us these things did not happen
For more than four years we have challenged the Communist Party of Ireland to defend, clarify, contradict, correct or repudiate a wide range of charges of internal misconduct on the part of party officials and committees. The party has maintained a strict policy of silence in each and every case.
Again, we ask the CPI to respond to the charges. In doing so, we move away from the particulars of the individual issues and the consequences for the members who were bullied, abused and expelled and concentrate on the internal rules and democracy of the party itself. In particular, we ask the CPI to explain how secret complaints, secret trials, secret activities, abuses of its constitution and downright thuggery became normalised in an organisation that has such a democratic structure enshrined in its constitution.
The CPI presents itself as the guardian of socialist values and justice and the vehicle for the replacement of capitalist exploitation and injustice. For these concepts to have any meaning, the operation behind such a movement has to be squeaky clean and be seen to be squeaky clean. The CPI stands accused of very serious infringements against individual members and against internal democracy. These charges cannot go unanswered while the CPI presents itself as a legitimate political force.
We have argued previously that it is the nature and veracity of the allegations that is important, not who is making them. Do the allegations made by us stand up to examination? In each and every claim we have made, we have stated that we have written evidence provided by the party, individual party officials and the committees we accuse.
The fact that the CPI has chosen to remain silent is damning for the party but even more damning and more important for the very concept of socialism itself. The party has the right to drag itself into ignominy but it does not have the right to drag the concept of socialism, and the prospects of socialist advancement in Ireland, with it.
Of course, every document can be interpreted in various ways and it is for this reason that we have always afforded the CPI a right of reply to explain each case as it sees fit:
Southern Area Committee (SAC):
This committee (no longer in existence) engaged in secret trials of members of the Dublin Branch on foot of secret complaints from the officers of the Dublin District Branch. So secret were these complaints that even the accused members did not know about the complaints or about the trials until the verdicts were communicated to them. Even then, the SAC refused to provide any copies of the actual complaints to the accused members. In doing so, the SAC endorsed the irregular activities of the Dublin District Branch officers.
When a ‘convicted’ member insisted on his right to appeal the SAC decision on the basis that this was an unfair, improper and undemocratic process he was told that he was in “no position to insist on any such follow up….”
That letter was signed by the current National Chairperson of the CPI, Jimmy Doran, then Secretary of the SAC.
The NEC later endorsed the actions of both the Dublin District Branch and of the Southern Area Committee.
Tell us these things did not happen.
See also When it all goes wrong
Dublin District Branch:
The list of infringements of branch standing orders, by the branch officers is too long to go into in detail. See Dublin Branch officers
The most serious charges are that the branch officers – the Gang of Four – acted outside of branch standing orders and engaged in secret activities, activities secret from the rest of the branch members and secret from specific members who were specifically targeted.
They submitted secret complaints against targeted members to the Southern Area Committee. They submitted secret proposals to the National Executive Committee and they blocked or hampered properly submitted proposals sent to the branch for consideration.
They submitted proposals to the NEC that they as individuals – and the branch itself – had voted against at branch level. The impunity they enjoyed is demonstrated by the fact they were preparing these proposals to the NEC in the same timeframe they were voting against the same proposals and encouraging branch members to vote against at branch level. They engineered branch policy while undermining targeted members and then included in their submission to the NEC policies they had voted against and rejected at branch level.
Tell us these things did not happen.
See also Dublin Branch
A case study: Bullying
- Considering the seriousness of allegations of bullying for both accuser and accused, it would be reasonable to assume that the organisation responsible for any such inquiry would go to all reasonable lengths to secure a fair and accurate outcome. Instead, the CPI went out of its way to do the opposite.
- It conducted an investigation into alleged bullying without providing the accused members with any terms of reference – having refused to use ICTU (or any other established) guidelines – while acknowledging that the CPI did not have any such guidelines of its own. When pushed, it reiterated that ICTU or any other set of guidelines would not be used, but conceded that it would employ the ICTU “definitions” of bullying and harassment.
- It then conflated the definitions of the terms “bullying” and “harassment” when it convicted a member of the much more serious offence of “harassment” when the charge against him was one of alleged bullying and despite the fact that harassment as never mentioned in the original complaint nor at any point during the inquiry.
- It then demanded that the member desist from such activity (“harassment”), knowingly imposing sanctions that it was impossible for the member to comply with.
- It then expelled the member on the basis that he had not complied with those sanctions and without going through any disciplinary procedures, instead using the illegitimate re-registration clause.
- All this time, the accuser, Ciara Ní Mhaoilfhinn, was Deputy National Chairperson of the party and sat on the NEC which set up the inquiry team. After the next National Congress, the newly elected NEC, of which she was now National Chairperson, refused to review the verdict and refused to engage the services of an independent conciliation/arbitration facilitator.
- It then denied the member the possibility of appealing either the verdict or the expulsion.
- Then, the lead in the inquiry which resulted in the botched verdict, Jimmy Corcoran, was elected General Secretary of the party after the 2022 National Congress and was re-elected after the 2026 National Congress.
- In a separate case, the CPI refused to investigate a fully documented accusation of bullying against the party itself submitted by a member. Despite numerous requests to have the claim investigated, the NEC still refuses to initiate an investigation.
Tell us these things did not happen.
See also Bullying
National Executive Committee (NEC):
As the highest authority of the CPI apart from a National Congress, the NEC is ultimately responsible for the conduct of the various committees of the party and for the protection and promotion of decisions of a National Congress, standing orders and the party constitution.
The NEC endorsed all of the infringements listed above (and many more) and did so in writing. Again, the list of infringements is too long to go into in detail so we confine this list to the most serious charges:
It used a clause in the party constitution concerned only with an annual re-registration process to expel or otherwise disappear a large number of members of the party. Some of those members were members of the NEC itself, who had been elected at the previous congress.
This blatant abuse of the constitution allowed the NEC to expel whosoever it wished without having to go through any of the democratic and constitutional protections in relation to allegations of misconduct against members. Targeted members were denied any recourse to investigation processes or appeals. This abuse was used to expel a large number of members from the north of Ireland – including the NEC members – and also to expel a member who was convicted in relation to an alleged bullying charge.
As a consequence, the NEC did not have to explain to party members that expulsions had taken place or the nature of the charges against the targeted members as required by the constitution.
The NEC also endorsed the secret activities, the secret trials and the abuses of standing orders committed by the Dublin District Branch and the Southern Area Committee: “The decisions taken where taken collectively. All member of the committee take full responsibility for all decisions. This is the final correspondence with you in regards this matter. The matter is closed. Eugene McCartan.”
Hiding behind democratic centralism (as the above statement does) and further abusing that democratic concept itself to provided individual and collective cover for outrageous breaches of democracy and accountability is about as low and it can get. Indeed, it is another example of strategic failure.
Tell us these things did not happen.
****
That other sustained strategy – silence – has not only failed but makes the party look helpless and impotent. The accusations will not go away and they gain more credibility the longer the farce is played out. The game is up.