The Race for the Áras

by Tom Reddy

  Gallagher explained that it was not a cheque from a speaking engagement but for one of his other businesses. It had been made out to the wrong account. The bookkeeper’s secretary had put it into the account named on the cheque, and when his accountant’s firm spotted it, in less than four weeks it was transferred to the correct account. No breach of company law took place, he asserted.

  Gallagher went on to say that he was 100 per cent compliant as regards taxes and and had posted his certificate from the Revenue Commissioners online.

  Kenny moved the debate on, addressing the theme of McGuinness’s campaign, his IRA membership and the murderous actions of the IRA, referring to the murder of Jean McConville.

  In December 1972 Jean McConville, a mother of ten young children, was abducted from her home by the IRA. She was shot in the head and her body secretly buried across the border on a beach in Co. Louth. Her children were taken into care by the local authority. The IRA claimed she had used a radio transmitter to pass information to British forces, a claim her children consistently denied. An investigation by the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland also rejected these claims.

  Twenty years later the IRA gave information about where her body was buried. A prolonged search co-ordinated by the Garda Síochána was abandoned when no body could be found in the area specified. In August 2003 her body was accidentally found by members of the public while they were walking on Shelling Hill Beach, near Dundalk.

  The Evening Herald’s television critic, Pat Stacey, summed up McGuinness’s response to Kenny’s questions, saying he simply unravelled when he found himself staring down the barrel of a direct question: Did he regard the IRA killings in Northern Ireland as murder or casualties of war?

  He couldn’t give a straight answer and fell back on a well-rehearsed routine which continually referred to dealing with the reality that there was ‘a conflict’. There was one deeply disingenuous incident of double-speak after Kenny had asked him if he could bring himself to say he believed Jean McConville was murdered. ‘I can bring myself to say the family of Jean McConville believes she was murdered,’ he said.

  Reintroducing the programme after the second commercial break, Kenny questioned Gallagher.

  A development on the ‘Martin McGuinness for President’ Twitter account: Sinn Féin are saying they are going to produce the man who gave you the cheque for five grand. Do you want to change what you said, or are you still saying this simply didn’t happen, or are they up to dirty tricks, or what?

  Gallagher began by saying he had always tried to stay above negative campaigning and went on to start saying he understood, only for Kenny to ask him, ‘You know who it is?’

  Gallagher said yes, that he was a fuel-smuggler, a convicted criminal and someone with links to Sinn Féin and who had been investigated by the Criminal Assets Bureau.

  ‘I don’t want to get involved in this. I don’t believe—’ said Gallagher, who was interrupted and shouted down by the audience.

  ‘Did you get a cheque from this guy or not?’ asked Kenny.

  ‘I have no recollection of getting a cheque from this guy. I can tell you—let me explain this very simply. I explained that there were two or three people that I asked. I don’t know the man very well that’s in question. So—’

  Kenny cut across him in an incredulous tone: ‘You went to a fuel-smuggler’s house and invited him to a Fianna Fáil do?’

  As Gallagher explained that he had been asked to contact local businessmen, McGuinness again repeated his charge.

  ‘What I have done—I may well have delivered the photograph, if he gave me an envelope …’ Gallagher attempted to say, before the audience interrupted him, jeering and hooting with laughter. He continued: ‘If he gave me the cheque it was made out to Fianna Fáil headquarters and it was delivered, and that was that. It was nothing to do with me.’

  ‘That’s a clear admission of what I said earlier,’ responded McGuinness.

  Gallagher also made it clear that he was unaware of the background of the man—later named as Hugh Morgan—at the time of the fund-raiser.

  Kenny did a round robin of the candidates, canvassing their views. Higgins replied that the matter needed to be clarified as a matter of urgency. Mitchell reverted to type and won audience approval: ‘I already said that Seán should take the opportunity to clear this up, but I do think it’s a bit much for Sinn Féin to be twittering or tweeting when Martin says he’s not even a Sinn Féin candidate: we can’t get that much out of Martin.’ Norris was asked if he had a view. ‘Not much,’ he responded with deadpan humour. ‘Except I think perhaps the reference to the envelope is a bit unfortunate,’ to roars of laughter.

  After the programme Sinn Féin denied it had issued any tweet, saying that it would produce the man who had spoken to McGuinness by phone and that it had informed him of the allegations about Gallagher’s fund-raising.

  The Irish Independent reported McGuinness as saying that the infamous Galway tent fund-raiser was now a thing of the past and that the meet-and-greet dinner event was the new method of raising funds.

  What is very, very clear is that Sean is part of the Galway tent culture. The man I spoke to also told me during the course of the conversation that one explanation that was given for the meeting of thirty-odd people, a Fianna Fail fund-raiser, a meeting with the Taoiseach, which I consider to be totally inappropriate given these are builders and developers at a time when the country was going through a major crisis.

  This man made it clear he was told that Fianna Fail had decided that the Galway tent operation had to fold up and this was going to be the alternative for fundraising.

  In RTE’s pre- and post-programme hospitality ‘green’ room Gallagher’s media adviser recognised that his client was, in the words of McGuinness, in deep, deep trouble.

  Chapter 15

  THE GOING

  Enda Kenny woke up on the day after the ‘Frontline’ debate to discover that he was still the country’s favourite. The post-election honeymoon was clearly still on as his satisfaction ratings increased by one point, bringing him to a record 52 per cent.

  The latest Irish Times/Ipsos/MRBI opinion poll would not reflect the impact of the ‘Frontline’ debate, as it was taken on the previous Wednesday and Thursday. Fine Gael topped the poll, with 36 per cent, up one point; the Labour Party picked up two points, to poll 19 per cent; Sinn Féin dropped three points, to 15 per cent; there was the same showing for Fianna Fáil, which had fallen one point; independents were up two points, to 14 per cent; and the Green Party dropped from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. Satisfaction with the coalition Government also nudged upwards by one point, to 37 per cent.

  While the news for Kenny and his Government was good, the poll showed what could have been. The party vote was not transferring to Mitchell, the dream of the Áras was slipping away, and there were only days to go before the polling-stations opened.

  The Evening Herald’s man on the sofa, Pat Stacey, scored the candidates in the game-changing ‘Frontline’ debate. Norris was the winner among the candidates, he said, awarding him 6 out of 10, saying he was witty and erudite and showed his sparkle of old—and made the point that opinion polls can become self-fulfilling prophecies.

  Mary Davis was a good second at 5 out of 10. Stacey commented:

  With Kenny seemingly uninterested in following up Davis’s role on various state boards, she had a quiet night of it and acquitted herself well, especially when reinforcing her claim that the constitutional amendment to widen the powers of the Oireachtas inquiries could dilute the rights of citizens. If only she and some of the other candidates had been this coherent earlier in the campaign.

  McGuinness was Gallagher’s main tormentor, he said, and ‘kept him wriggling on the hook.’ But with McGuinness having fallen back on well-rehearsed routines about the ‘conflict’ and then saying, ‘I can bring myself to say the family of Jean McConville believes she was murdered,’ Stacey gave him 4 out of 10.

  Gallagher looke
d stiff and uneasy, and questions about his association with Fianna Fáil and with Charlie Haughey, and about how he left over €80,000 resting in an account, left him ‘looking rattled and unconvincing.’ Gallagher dealing with the cheque allegations—saying the cheque was made out to Fianna Fáil head office and that it was delivered to them and had nothing to do with him—drew Stacey’s comment ‘Oops, afraid it had, Seán,’ and merited him 3 out of 10.

  Higgins scored 6 out of 10 for a solid performance with charm and self-deprecating quips about his age, while Mitchell scored 2 out of 10 and Dana nil.

  The winner was—Pat Kenny. Awarding him 10 out of 10, Stacey said Kenny ‘might be to light entertainment what Derek Mooney is to cage-fighting. But when he’s in his proper setting Kenny is the best TV current affairs broadcaster we have.’

  Fianna Fáil issued a statement on Tuesday confirming that it received a donation of €5,000 from Mr Morgan before the Crowne Plaza event took place. The dinner raised less than €100,000, and Mr Morgan’s cheque, dated 26 June, was lodged to the party account on 30 June of that year. It refused to elaborate on who else gave donations at the fund-raiser that Gallagher helped organise. Previously, asked about the fund-raiser attended by the then Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, Micheál Martin declined to comment, stating: ‘We’re not involved in this presidential campaign.’

  Meanwhile the bookies had been gauging the public mood, on the grounds that the public put their money where their mouth was. One punter put €6,500 on Higgins to win after the ‘Frontline’ debate, forcing Paddy Power to reduce their odds, from 11:10 to evens. The morning after the debate more money piled onto Higgins, tightening his odds to 8:13 and pushing the former favourite, Gallagher, from odds on to 6:5. Higgins moved to 8:13 (from 5:2) on Monday, Gallagher 6:5 (from 1:4), McGuinness 25:1 (from 50:1) and Norris 33:1 (from 66:1). Mitchell, Davis and Dana were offered at 300:1.

  Since the election campaign had begun, money had moved onto different candidates in significant amounts as the political dynamic unfolded, resulting in five changes at the top of the presidential betting since the start of the year.

  On the news-stands the music magazine Hot Press came out with a significant and expected endorsement of Higgins. He was an old friend of the magazine’s founder, Niall Stokes, and had contributed a column to the magazine for years.

  It also published an interview with Mitchell, who remained on message throughout, returning to the main points of his launch speech, his upbringing and his political career, and he revisited the death-penalty issue. He also denied that he had attacked McGuinness, saying he had asked three reasonable questions: when did he leave the IRA, why does he say he’s not the Sinn Féin candidate and what is the status of his salary and his industrial wage. According to Mitchell, all the candidates

  are in a poll situation which is very volatile … The only thing you can compare it with are the polls at the last presidential election fourteen years ago. Those polls were totally wrong. They said Adi Roche would get 38 per cent and she actually got less than 7 per cent. So I wouldn’t put much trust in polls right now.

  It was a familiar statement that he used again and again to justify an expected surge in poll support.

  ‘You said you wouldn’t put much trust in polls, but Fine Gael conduct polls. So are any of them believable?’ asked Jackie Hayden, who conducted the interview.

  I think presidential polls are very volatile. It’s like a national by-election. Unlike a general election, where you have candidates in each constituency, you don’t have policy debates like what are you going to do about my local school or about education generally, or about the local hospital or tax.

  So, the debates take place about a lot of celebrity stuff. Near the end of the campaign people look at it and say, hold on, where’s our country at and who do we really need as president? Then they make a more serious decision and firm up their views.

  ‘But you’re not doing well in the poll, so what’s the explanation for that?’ asked Hayden.

  Well, I don’t know. I suspect there may be people who feel that if they say they’re not going to vote Fine Gael in the polls it might cause Fine Gael to sit up and take notice.

  I’m the only candidate running on the Government side who’s not retired. I’m an active member of the Fine Gael parliamentary party and an MEP. So that may be drawing some of the opprobrium. That’s in the poll stages. In the final stages, people want the Government to take decisions. They want this sorted. It’s in a mess and they want a future for their children. In their heart of hearts people want leadership and firm decisions made.

  On Tuesday morning Gallagher was prepared and on his way to the RTE studios for his turn as a candidate for a scheduled interview with Pat Kenny. It was both an opportunity to clear up the questions raised on the previous evening’s ‘Frontline’ programme and a valuable opportunity to have the last word in a one-to-one interview. It was another high-wire act, with the potential to win back lost ground or to compound a problem. Three opinion polls still showed him firm favourite, and that morning’s Irish Times poll gave him comfort, showing that Fine Gael supporters were unwilling to transfer their support for the Government to Mitchell.

  It was fight-back time. Gallagher would say he was the victim of a smear campaign, but time was running out for patching up the damage inflicted on him in the previous evening’s television debate. The exchange had shown him fudging as he changed his story while under pressure from McGuinness and in response to a Sinn Féin tweet that it would produce a witness.

  On air, Kenny replayed part of the previous evening’s programme and asked Gallagher if he’d like to comment.

  Gallagher confirmed that he had been contacted by a journalist the previous week making inquiries about the fund-raiser and went on to say that he realised as soon as he began topping the poll that he would come under political attack. Sinn Féin had set out to sabotage his campaign, he claimed.

  Last night Martin McGuinness, with the help of Hugh Morgan, who loaded the gun, pulled the trigger with a different story that I allegedly went to the man’s house to deliver a photograph of him with the Taoiseach.

  I could have fudged the issue, but one of the things I’ve said in my campaign is ‘never tell untruths’. I do not recall going to this man’s house. I couldn’t tell you or take you to his house, or even to his office, because I never met the man.

  Kenny wondered how he could not have been prepared for such questions, having got advance notice the previous week of such a line of inquiry. Gallagher said that Sinn Féin was orchestrating a hatchet job, but that any cheque he may have received would have been sent straight to Fianna Fáil head office, and he referred to the Fianna Fáil statement issued that morning. He said his lack of recollection was an honest mistake and also emphasised that the Fianna Fáil fund-raising event was legal.

  Gallagher was clearly spooked by the way the campaign had turned and felt the pressure mounting. He broadened his attack to include a member of the studio audience, specifically the woman in the front row who had confronted him about his business dealings. He challenged Kenny:

  Who was the businesswoman, and what’s her background, and where does she come from, and what party is she attached to? I’m tired of people being wheeled out with agendas. You put that person here in front of me, and let them tell you and me and the nation their background. You wheel a person out on a programme and they throw allegations at me without them defining who they are, what their political allegiance is, and I find that difficult.

  Kenny assured him to the contrary. The woman had rung the show’s office earlier in the morning to assure them that she had no political connections, he said. He then played a clip from the previous evening’s programme and asked Gallagher to respond.

  The wording of that woman—I’m not casting aspersions on her, but you don’t know why she was there or her political background. She’s talking about ‘improper’, ‘voter worry’. Is she in somebody else’s campaign team, trying to
take down my campaign to boost somebody else’s campaign? Is she a member of a political party?

  It was a question, with hindsight, he shouldn’t have asked live on air; he should have stuck to the lawyer’s adage that you never ask a question if you don’t already know the answer.

  Clarification came, almost instantly, when Glenna Lynch rang in to the show.

  I’m so shocked. I was driving on my way to see someone, a client in work, and I had to stop the car. It’s absolutely shocking.

  If jaws dropping around the country could have made a sound it would have been a deafening roar. It was to make for unmissable, unpredictable radio.

  I’m a completely normal person. I have three children. I’m married, I live in Stillorgan. I am not involved in any political party. I don’t know a single politician, and I think it’s extraordinary that Seán believes normal people, voters, don’t have the right to ask a question

  She said she had emailed ‘The Frontline’ a list of questions, and a researcher had contacted her and asked if she’d come onto the programme and ask a question from the audience. ‘I could have asked him questions for two hours,’ she said.

  She accused Gallagher of receiving ‘extraordinary and probably unprecedented state funding’ and that ‘in the course of that money flowing into your company, yourself and your partner basically raided the coffers.’

  ‘Not so,’ said Gallagher, firmly denying the accusation, saying he had always acted with integrity and honesty. ‘I stand over everything I have done as being impeccable with honesty and integrity. I absolutely refute any allegations that will be framed in such a way as to make me, my company or my integrity to be undermined in any way.’

  He complained that his time was eaten into in dealing with the controversies and that he believed Kenny should have allowed him time to outline the vision he had for addressing the issues.