Man who made threats to kill Dublin city councillor jailed for 13 months
Declan Brennan
A man who made threats to kill a Dublin city councillor has been jailed for 13 months.
On the night of May 15th, 2024 Jamie Moonen of Mountjoy Square, Dublin 1 showed up at the offices of Malachy Steenson, the Independent Dublin city councillor and made threats to kill Mr Steenson.
Garda Darragh O'Connor told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that a short time before this Moonen (30) had approached a garda patrol car on the North Circular Road and began to verbally abuse a garda member.
He told the garda “you're a fuckin’ prick and you do nothing for the public” and then said he was going to go and kill Mr Steenson, who was then currently campaigning in the local and European elections.
Gda O'Connor said the garda believed the threat to be credible and went to Mr Steenson's offices. They met Moonen who again became verbally abusive.
When two male relatives of Mr Steenson stepped outside Moonen became very aggressive and repeated his threat to kill the now 62-year-old politician. Gardaí arrested the defendant and he told them he'd had a few drinks and saw lots of Mr Steenson's political posters in the area.
He said he got angry and he wanted to confront Mr Steenson on his policies.
Moonen told gardaí that he was diagnosed with depression and he needed help. He fully admitted making the threats and apologised for his behaviour.
The court heard that he said he didn't mean what he said but appreciated that his words would have had an impact.
He pleaded guilty to making a threat to a garda to kill or cause serious harm to another person on May 15th, 2024. He has 12 previous convictions for public order offences and one for assault.
Reading from his own victim impact statement Mr Steenson said this was not the first time in his political career that his life had been threatened.
He said “we are living in very tense political times” and said that since this incident he has increased his security. He asked Judge Martin Nolan to consider a lenient sentence, saying: “I hope Mr Moonen has learned from these events and overcomes the challenges he already faces."
Judge Nolan said that Moonen has an irascible manner. He said that his previous public order offences, while of a less serious nature, were aggravating factors he had to consider.
He set a headline sentence of three years which he reduced to 13 months to take mitigating factors into consideration including Moonen's co-operation with gardai and his personal difficulties.
