'The threat level was just too much' – Holly Cairns closes ...

Ms Cairns shut the office in Bandon over the weekend after a long-running campaign of abuse, intimidation and menace directed towards her.

Ms Cairns told the Irish Independent: “It’s disappointing to have to take this step, but we are determined as a team and constituency office to not let it impact on the work we do to represent the people of Cork South West.

“Scheduled meetings are now arranged by getting in touch with my office.”

Earlier, she said in a statement: “Following a security review last summer, in consultation with my team, a decision was made to close the office.”

She added that this “was after gardaí advised me against holding constituency clinics”.

The 33-year-old Cork South-West TD, who is the only female TD for the entire county, has previously revealed how a persistent online stalker began to show up at her home, leaving her “absolutely terrified”.

Ms Cairns was forced to install CCTV and a domestic security system at her home. The stalker had been an online troll at first before harassing her in real life. Ms Cairns spoke publicly of being subject to abuse of a sexual nature, with pornography sent to her in the post.

“It started off with I would get online messages from anonymous accounts and there’s obviously the different variations of abuse that you get,” she said.

“There’s the public commentary that everyone can see and then there’s private messages, voice notes, letters and then there’s in person. I think that was the scale that it went with for me over time.

“It wasn’t until somebody who had started off with messages to my work phone then ended up turning up at the house on several occasions and wouldn’t stop doing that, that it changed everything for me.

“When I was up in Dublin there would be messages coming in saying, ‘I’m outside your house’, and it went on for a long time. I think the worst is when it comes to your door.”

Ms Cairns told a Virgin Media News podcast last year that she might never have run for election had she known the level of abuse she would face.

“If I knew what I was getting myself into, I would not have done it,” she said.

A party colleague said Social Democrat members understood Ms Cairns’ decision to close the office, with staff afraid of who might walk in. “The threat level was just too much in the end,” they said.

Gardaí have carried out free security assessments for TDs, including inspections of constituency offices, where clinics are often held.

Recommendations have included buzzers to open doors, once a person can see the person and speak to them by intercom, and also panic alarms below desks. But some TDs fear security measures act as barriers to interaction with the public.

On October 15, 2021, David Amess, a British Conservative MP for Southend, was fatally stabbed at a constituency clinic at Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex.

Five years before, in the run-up to the Brexit referendum, Labour MP Jo Cox was attacked on her way to meet constituents. She was shot and stabbed, before dying in the street.

TDs’ constituency offices have been hit by graffiti and daubings, while offensive material has been pushed through letterboxes.

There have also been incidents where windows were broken, but no direct physical assaults have happened as yet.

TDs and senators can avail of Oireachtas grants of up to €5,000 towards the cost of security systems, including alarms and cameras, but many say the actual cost for protective fittings is about twice as much.