Taoiseach convinced position safe

An Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said he believes his positions as Taoiseach and as Fianna Fáil party leader are safe, following the release of a report into the handling of the selection of Jim Gavin as the party’s candidate for this year’s presidential election.

Mr Martin said while there certainly were mistakes made in the process which the party intends to rectify moving forward, the issue has gone on for “far too long”.

Speaking yesterday on RTÉ’s ‘Today with David McCullagh’, he said the party needed to “draw a line under this and move forward with the issues actually facing the country”.

Issues had been raised from some quarters on alleged over-centralisation of decisions being made in the party by the Taoiseach. However, he was adamant that he takes issue with the assertion, and that it simply was not the case.

“Nobody was complaining about my over-centralisation when we won the most seats in the last general election.

“When I took over as party leader, we only had 20 seats, now we’re the largest party in the Dáil. We had very strong showings in the local and European elections. No one thought that we would be able to get back the number of MEPs we had, and now we have four, we’ve been very successful.”

Asked if he would consider tabling a confidence motion in himself with the parliamentary party, he said that he would not as he “saw no need to”.

The report, which was released to members of Fianna Fáil’s parliamentary party on Tuesday evening, and discussed in a five-hour meeting that night, revealed that the potential issue of a former tenant of Jim Gavin’s was raised with Chief of Staff Deirdre Gillane by Irish Independent journalist Fionán Sheahan on 5 September. He contacted the party again asking if he could speak to Gavin on 8 September.

Jack Chambers, Fianna Fáil’s Director of Elections, was also contacted by TD Jack Lahart about a potential issue of a deposit not being paid back to a former tenant of Gavin’s, who was a journalist.

These rumours were not shared with members of the parliamentary party, but Gavin was questioned about them on a number of occasions and was adamant that he had no recollection of the issue.

Mr Martin said that there were a number of false rumours being circulated about Gavin in the run-up to the Fianna Fáil selection vote – which took place on 9 September.

The report also found no polling was done of Gavin before his selection, and that the Taoiseach only met him formally once before his selection as a presidential candidate.

The Taoiseach said that informal soundings out were also carried out, and that he had met Gavin in other instances, both of which confirmed his suitability.