Simon Harris has said that threats of violence against his family cannot be “consequence free”. 

Earlier this month, Galway man Patrick Grealish was sentenced to eight months in prison - with the final four suspended - for making an online threat to kill or cause serious harm to the Tánaiste’s family. 

On The Claire Byrne Show, the Fine Gael leader said he had thought “long and hard” about giving a victim impact statement in court. 

However, he said while everyone in public life experiences “online nastiness”, what his family went through was “at a level like I'd never experienced before”. 

“I wanted to pose to the person a few questions as to what actually goes through your mind when you sit at home behind a computer screen and threatened to do very significant harm to my children or to my family?” he recalled. 

“Is it that you mean to carry that out? Is it that you just want to cause us real hurt and panic and fear? Is it that you don't even bother thinking at all? And I did just think it needed to be called out. 

“The oxygen is sucked out of your home when you're sitting there on a Friday evening and you receive a credible threat to carry out very significant physical harm to your children. 

“And these things can't be consequence free.” 

Simon Harris during the 2024 General Election campaign. Picture by: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie. 

Minister Harris continued that while he and his wife have tried to shield his two young children from the threats against their family, he added that children are “very perceptive”. 

“If there's bomb threats to your home - as we've had - and there's Gardaí and sniffer dogs wandering around your home, they're aware there's something up,” he said. 

“But of course, we try to protect our children from it and they're great and they're well.

“But it's unfortunate.” 

Minister Harris continued that the threats against him are “not unique” to him and he fears the impact it will have on Irish democracy. 

“If you're going to endeavor to intimidate people out of public office, that's not consequence free either,” he said. 

“Because there's people listening to this program - perhaps even young people - and regardless of their political views, I hope they seek public office because we need people to be willing to serve.

“And this toxic environment makes that less appealing.”

Main image: Simon Harris at a press conference. Picture by: X/@ZelenskyyUa.