A leading Fianna Fáil backbench TD has accused Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers of “the most unceremonious dumping on a party candidate in modern Irish political history”.
On the eve of what is expected to be a fractious parliamentary party meeting to discuss the dramatic withdrawal of Jim Gavin from the presidential election race, Cork East TD James O’Connor issued a long statement claiming Mr Martin and Mr Chambers made a “serious miscalculation” in not taking the concerns of TDs, MEPs and Senators on board.
He said Mr Gavin had a “glaring lack” of political experience and “should never have found himself on the ballot paper” but had been put there because of extensive pressure put on colleagues by the two most senior figures in the party.
“I regret the treatment bestowed on Mr Gavin and his family in the past two days. Elevating him one day and then throwing him under a bus the next has to be the most unceremonious dumping on a party candidate in modern Irish political history,” Mr O’Connor said.
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He further said it is clear that Mr Gavin was very poorly advised over the last 48 hours of his campaign.
Mr O’Connor called on the leadership to address what he described as the mistakes and misjudgement of the past six weeks.
The statement from Mr O’Connor is the most direct and public challenge to the authority of Mr Martin since Mr Gavin withdrew from the election late on Sunday night.
The former Dublin GAA manager had initially told party officials he could not recollect owing a former tenant €3,300 for an inadvertent overpayment of rent. However, the tenant contacted Fianna Fáil on Saturday with evidence of the money owed that Mr Chambers said had “absolute veracity”.
Speaking on RTÉ on Monday, the Taoiseach sought to explain why Mr Gavin may not have disclosed the information. “There was an issue in his life, around 2009. He clearly did not deal with it at that time or since, and probably buried it somewhere in the recesses of his mind, and didn’t deal with it. And the consequences of that have now come home.”
Several TDs have said they want to know why Mr Gavin was allowed to go ahead with a live TV interview on RTÉ involving all three candidates on Sunday afternoon in light of what had been known about the overpayment since Saturday.
Mr Martin suggested Mr Gavin had not perhaps contemplated stepping back at the time and only did so after they had a private conversation later that afternoon.
Fianna Fáil has also strongly denied that it was made aware of the overpayment on September 8th, before Mr Gavin was nominated as the party’s candidate.
The Irish Independent wrote to Fianna Fáil on that date saying it wanted to put “specific questions about property interests and a particular issue arising with a tenant when he was a landlord”.
The party said the query was general in nature and not specific to the actual issue that arose last weekend, and no reference was made to a rent overpayment.
Speaking on his way into Government Buildings on Tuesday morning, Mr Martin said: “An issue was raised, but in a very generic and general way.
“We were not aware of any such issue, and that is the truth of it, and when the issue was raised repeatedly, we were told it was no issue.”
Mr Martin said it was an “inaccurate construct to put on it” to state the party was aware of the issue earlier than when the tenant themselves “rang on Saturday”.
The meeting on Wednesday night is expected to hear some outspoken and angry contributions from TDs, Senators and MEPs, who will join the meeting via video-link from Strasbourg.
However, most TDs who spoke to The Irish Times said that while the perceived ‘top-down’ style of the party leader will be the target of criticism, no significant challenge to his leadership is expected.
However, former TD Éamon Ó Cuív said it was “highly unlikely” that Mr Martin would lead Fianna Fáil into the next general election.
Speaking to Newstalk Breakfast, Mr Ó Cúiv said the Taoiseach has gone past the “natural sell-by date” of party leaders.
Mr Martin has been leader of Fianna Fáil for almost 15 years.
