Presidential election hopeful Gareth Sheridan has accused people in former business associate Seán Gallagher’s “circle” of leaking negative stories to the press.
In an extraordinary intervention, Mr Sheridan stated that there had been a “coordinated attack” on him.
Mr Gallagher previously served as chairman of Mr Sheridan’s pharmaceutical company, Nutriband, from 2017 to 2021. Mr Gallagher also previously contested the presidential election in 2011 and 2018.
Before starting his campaign launch at a press conference in the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin, Mr Sheridan said he wanted to bring to reporters’ “attention the journalism and coverage of our announcement and our campaign”.
“There seems to be somewhat of a coordinated attack taking place on my character by people associated and in Seán Gallagher’s circle,” he said.
“I’m not saying for a moment that Seán is behind this or involved in any way. At MacGill [Summer School] a couple of weeks ago, he actually encouraged participation, asked the media to be nice to candidates that were brave, to come forward and encourage candidates to put their name in the ring.
“Hopefully, that’s still the case. But some of you in the room know what I’m talking about. That’s all I’ll say on that.
“For a couple of days now, we’ve been receiving essentially copy-and-paste question lists with minimal time to respond from various different outlets with the exact same questions. Something just seems a little off.”
Mr Sheridan said Mr Gallagher was chairman of Nutriband for a “number of years”.
The company received Nasdaq listing in 2021. He said that leading up to this, it was advised that the chairman of the company should have capital markets experience.
This was put to Mr Gallagher, and he was asked to “voluntarily step aside” but stay on as a director, and Sergey Melnik was appointed.
Mr Sheridan stated that “communication broke down” at this point.
“I wish Seán nothing but the best [in] whatever he’s working on now,” he said.
“I’d just like to be very upfront and make sure that you’re aware of the situation that we’re facing.
“Perhaps somebody is taking our breakup a little bit worse than me.”
Mr Sheridan denied that this was an “attack” on Mr Gallagher and added that he has “no way of saying Seán is involved”.
He then spoke about “hysterical headlines in the newspapers”.
When asked what hysterical headlines he was talking about, Mr Sheridan referenced coverage that referred to him as a “multimillionaire tycoon”, arguing that he had never “used the word tycoon in a sentence”.
This is despite Mr Sheridan referring to himself as a “multi-millionaire pharma tycoon” in his own opening remarks, as well as later in the press conference.
Elsewhere at the press conference, Mr Sheridan confirmed he has a net worth of $16.5m. This includes $16m in Nutriband shares and €500,000 in the bank.
The 35-year-old has said he is confident of having a proposer and seconder at least four county councils.
He is seeking to run as an independent candidate.
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