A week to remember for the Social Democrats has been, to say the least, a chastening political experience.
The fiasco over when newly elected TD Eoin Hayes disposed of his shareholding in controversial firm Palantir Technologies was a demonstration of the scandals that can erupt suddenly, apparently out of nowhere.
It is an embarrassment, all the more so when the new Dáil has not yet commenced, and on a day when the party was holding its first post-election conference to celebrate the almost doubling of its numbers from six to 11. In the space of six hours, a novice TD went from being part of a brightly shining party to being suspended from it, leaving his colleagues to pick up the pieces.
The Social Democrats were founded in 2015 and have been in Opposition since the party’s inception, but viewed as squeaky clean — a fresh voice in politics. Its support for Palestinians, calls for sanctions on Israel and backing of the Occupied Territories Bill to ban trade from illegally occupied parts of Palestinian territories won it significant votes in the election, particularly from younger people.
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But its handling of the share situation showed a telling lack of experience in conjunction with the fallout from the departure last July of its former leaders Róisín Shortall and Catherine Murphy.
The first mistake was not acting after a story emerged about Hayes’s ownership of shares in Palantir Technologies, a US-based software firm cofounded by billionaire Peter Thiel, with investment from the CIA, that supplies surveillance and military technology to countries globally including the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The company provides artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to the IDF that allow them to identify targets in their bombing campaigns in Gaza.
Hayes worked for Palantir between 2015 and 2017 — before the advances in AI — but had a shareholding as part of his pay package, which he could not have sold until after the company went public in 2021. However he held the stock for longer.
[ Palantir is no stranger to controversy at home or abroadOpens in new window ]
At the press conference last Tuesday, he was asked again about his shareholding in Palantir. He gave the same answer on 23 occasions, to persistent questioning, that he had “fully divested before I entered politics”. He declined to state exactly when and the value of the shareholding.
Afterwards, at a meeting with Dublin Central TD Gary Gannon and political and communications director Colette Browne, Hayes told them he had sold the shares in July. He had tried to sell them in February, but there was “some admin reason and he just couldn’t”, according to party sources.
Social Democrats members believed the shareholding had been disposed of earlier in the year. He informed the candidate-selection committee in July when he sold the shares, but that information was not passed on to deputy leader Cian O’Callaghan or other TDs.
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In a statement following that meeting, Hayes apologised “unreservedly”, saying he sold his 7,000 shares in the company in July for a pretax figure of €199,000.
An hour later, the deputy leader issued a statement announcing Hayes’s suspension with immediate effect.
Hayes, who in a further statement after his suspension said he would sit as an Independent, added: “I hope to earn back the trust of the Social Democrats and will work hard to do so.”
This will be a big challenge for the Limerick-born TD, because “a lot of people are really, really upset by this”, said a party source. Some party members believe he was “politically naive” but “the whole issue of Gaza is felt so deeply by our members and supporters and the general public as well. It will all depend on the review.”
At a meeting of the party’s national executive, O’Callaghan asked for a review to be undertaken. A three-member team, not involved in the candidate selection and development process, will complete this by the end of January.
Party leader Holly Cairns, on maternity leave, has been “kept in the loop” and was contacted on Tuesday before the suspension decision was made.
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“Scandals are part and parcel of political life,” said Trinity College Dublin professor of political science Gail McElroy. “The news cycle moves on quickly. They did react well though. They kind of nipped it in the bud. He was out immediately ... The next election is probably 2028 or ‘29. This will be absolute history at that stage.”
DCU associate professor of political science Eoin O’Malley said: “It’s a screw-up and every party has screw-ups. It only has long-term implications if the party starts to eat itself.”
The new TDs “don’t know each other that well and there may not be a level of trust among them”. If they avoid that “it should be recoverable”.
Allegations of hypocrisy over its stance on Gaza have been thrown at the party, but O’Malley suggests the hypocrisy was on Hayes’s part “given that he was talking about genocide in Gaza last year while he has these shares”.
He said the controversy illustrates the difficulty a party like the Social Democrats would have in government. “Any party that expects purity will never be able to deliver it because usually when you get into government or any position of power then you do have to compromise on those ideals.”
The Dublin Bay South TD was contacted for comment.
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