A Fianna Fáil parliamentary source has said that Jim Gavin’s presidential campaign was going wrong long before the tenancy scandal.
Speaking to Gript on condition of anonymity, they said that the news that Gavin was dropping out of the Presidential race was announced via a WhatsApp message sent out to parliamentary party members late on Sunday night by party leader Micheál Martin.
The source said that “on a human level” they “felt awful for poor Jim and his family.”
“On a human level I feel awful for poor Jim and his family, but that being said if the allegations against him are correct, that he was keeping money that wasn’t his from a tenant, that’s obviously wrong,” they said.
“And the fact that he hadn’t his property registered with the RTB is also a problem.”
Jim Gavin faced controversy after it emerged he had allegedly failed to refund a former tenant’s overpayment of €3,300 rent dating from 2009, and also admitted that the property had not been registered with the Residential Tenancies Board – revelations that led to increased scrutiny and his withdrawal from the presidential race.
The source said that the scandal should have been discovered before Gavin was put forward as a candidate.
“Those are the things that should have come to light sooner, I think, in talking to him in advance of him being put forward as a candidate to consider internally,” they said.
“And it’s unfortunate – I don’t know why that information didn’t come forward, and I think we have a lot to talk about in the parliamentary party this week.”
However, they said that the campaign was going wrong in a variety of ways even before such scandals emerged.
“Beyond that issue I think there’s an awful lot of other aspects to the campaign that weren’t going well that we have to give consideration to,” the source explained.
“I mean, for me, I think the campaign has a big question mark over asking Jack Chambers to be the Director of Elections when he’s in the middle of his busiest ministerial time of year. I think that was unfair to be expecting him to give attention to both of those things.”
They added that the party’s communication was poor, with PR blunders such as a video aimed at rural voters showing Gavin leaving a gate open behind him, or leaving white trousers on a farm.
“We should have been in greater command of what we did have command over,” the source said.
However, despite these errors, the source did not believe there would be a push to oust Micheál Martin as Fianna Fáil leader.
The source said that Martin would argue that, on balance, his leadership has done more good than harm for the party in successive elections; that this was an aberration, and that he would successfully talk many disgruntled backbenchers down from the ledge of mutiny.
Despite Gavin dropping out of the race, his name will still appear on the ballot, though the race will consist in earnest of a contest between Leftwing Independent Catherine Connolly and Fine Gael’s Heather Humphreys.