Cllr Wallace this morning completely distanced herself from the statement – which criticised Limerick's Rainbow Support Services for opening a drop-in cafe for teenagers unsure of their sexuality, claiming it amounted to grooming.

The statement appeared to come from Cllr Wallace's email address and included her mobile phone number but when contacted, this morning, she said: "That's the first I heard of it. I have never even heard of the cafe never mind issued a statement about it. It sounds like somebody is up to no good and playing political games."

"I have no gripe with anybody over their sexuality and what their choices are," she said.

"When I am out canvassing, I give my card to anybody who wants to contact me and on that card, obviously, is my email address and my mobile phone number. That information is easily out there so I can only suspect it has fallen into the wrong hands."

Cllr Wallace said she wasn't the only councillor having a problem with e-mails and Cllr Maria Byrne confirmed this morning that her Fine Gael colleague Cllr Jim Long had also received an email from her which she had never sent.

"When Jim Long traced it, all he was getting was this 'no name, no name' so we don't know who is sending out these emails," she said.
Asked if these emails were filled with the sort of hatred on the "statement" of Cllr Wallace, Cllr Byrne said 'No, most of them are just stupid. Mine was a picture of Sarkozy rubbing George Bush's chest".

Cllr Byrne recalled that during the campaign in 2004, her voicemail had been "hacked into" and said that nothing would surprise her.

"I had no security code on my voicemail so somebody was able to go in and change my message," she revealed.

It meant that constituents calling Cllr Byrne in the middle of an election campaign heard "laughing, burping and quite a bit of bad language".

Cllr Wallace said this morning that she wants City Hall to investigate how this could have occurred and deputy city manager Kieran Lehane said he would be speaking to the Council's information systems section on the matter. It is not believed, however, that the system has been hacked into.

Rainbow Support Services declined to comment this Monday on their voluntary organisation being dragged through the mud during an election.