One Irish student has been bearing the brunt of the Tánaiste's decisions
Life & Style

One Irish student has been bearing the brunt of the Tánaiste's decisions

MANY people rejoiced as the Tánaiste, Frances Fitzgerald finally announced plans for her resignation today.

The deputy prime minister has been under fierce scrutiny the last while due to her involvement in the Maurice McCabe Garda whistleblower scandal.

Last night saw the emergence of more emails which only seemed to incriminate the Tánaiste more, leading her to resign today.

Fitzgerald decided to leave her job as a Government rather than push the country towards a snap election, which would have been likely due to the vote of no confidence in the Tánaiste from Fianna Fáil.

One person who has gotten whipped up in the whirlwind surrounding the dilemma involving the soon to be former Tánaiste is another woman by the same name.

University of Limerick graduate Frances Fitzgerald had the unfortunate luck to share the name with the minister who was receiving all kinds of attention online in the last week.

The former journalism and new media graduate from UL bears the Twitter username @FrancesFitz90, which many hastily believed was the tag for government minster Frances Fitzgerald, whom actually tweets from @FitzgeraldFrncs.

Speaking to The Irish Post, Frances who resides in Clonmel, Tipperary spoke of how people kept mixing her up with the Tánaiste: "I was being asked direct questions regarding the scandal. Irish Times journalist Harry McGee mistakenly tagged me instead of the former Tanaiste and someone replied asking if there was “any sign of a statement from McCabe”.

Rather than get frustrated or ignore the tweets, Frances was a kind soul and pointed people in the right direction: "I would just inform people they had the wrong Frances Fitzgerald and they generally apologised and deleted their tweets – it was all really funny, not at all a big deal."

When asked if she had been contacted by the other Frances Fitzgerald, the graduate showed her good humour in a witty reply: "No contact from the former Tanaiste - she's got enough on her plate for the day I'd say."