{"id":194654,"date":"2025-12-16T12:21:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T12:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/194654\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T12:21:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T12:21:07","slug":"taoiseach-absolutely-confident-as-fianna-fail-to-consider-presidential-election-review-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/194654\/","title":{"rendered":"Taoiseach \u2018absolutely\u2019 confident as Fianna F\u00e1il to consider presidential election review \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> has said he has \u2018absolute\u2019 confidence in his leadership of Fianna F\u00e1il as the parliamentary party is to meet on Tuesday evening to discuss its review of the presidential election. <\/p>\n

The long-awaited review into Jim Gavin\u2019s<\/a> disastrous presidential campaign was sent to Mr Martin late last night.<\/p>\n

The parliamentary party will meet at 7pm to discuss its contents.<\/p>\n

The review was prompted amid the anger and embarrassment that followed the former Dublin GAA manager\u2019s dramatic departure from the presidential race, which left Fianna F\u00e1il without a candidate in what effectively became a contest between now President Catherine Connolly<\/a> and Fine Gael\u2019s Heather Humphreys.<\/p>\n

Mr Gavin stepped aside after it emerged he owed \u20ac3,300 to a former tenant, who had rented an apartment from him 16 years ago.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters on his way into Cabinet, Mr Martin said he would be sharing the report with the parliamentary party \u201cpromptly\u201d, having received it on Monday evening.<\/p>\n

Asked if his leadership was in trouble, he said: \u201cNo, not at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he would be meeting the chairman of the Fianna F\u00e1il parliamentary party and the party whip to arrange a meeting of elected representatives on the matter.<\/p>\n

He told reporters: \u201cI will deal with the entirety of the report this evening because it\u2019s a report in the first instance for the Fianna F\u00e1il party \u2013 because the Fianna F\u00e1il party asked for that.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the terms of reference were very clear that it would be completed, it would be handed to me, and then I would share with the parliamentary party, and that\u2019s exactly what I\u2019m going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Martin reiterated criticism of some of the media coverage of the report, adding that \u201cfalse\u201d assertions about individuals had been made.<\/p>\n

Asked if he was relieved he had the report, he said: \u201cI\u2019m much happier that I have it. I didn\u2019t have it all along and I was taken back to some of the commentary last week, where it seemed to people to be acting on reported leaks or whatever, and the assertions contained in some of the commentary last week were simply false \u2013 and I had to put that on the record.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pressed on what was incorrect about the coverage, Mr Martin refused to \u201ccontextualise assertions that were made\u201d.<\/p>\n

He told reporters he was \u201cnot going to get into an argy-bargy with anybody\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe report will be published. The report will go to the parliamentary party. The full entirety of the context will be there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Martin said that he was \u201cabsolutely\u201d confident he could remain as leader, adding that he had received a mandate when Fianna F\u00e1il was returned as the largest party in the D\u00e1il in last year\u2019s general election.<\/p>\n

Fianna F\u00e1il MEP Barry Andrews has said that Mr Martin \u201cshould have nothing to fear\u201d about the controversy.<\/p>\n

However, when asked on RT\u00c9 Radio\u2019s Today with David McCullagh show if he had confidence in Mr Martin, Mr Andrews replied: \u201cI have confidence in his leadership, but confidence just isn\u2019t permanent and it\u2019s earned fresh every time we have problems, we have controversies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a big controversy for the party, I wouldn\u2019t pass sentence until I\u2019ve heard the evidence,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Taoiseach presented his position at the previous parliamentary party meeting, he said he was sorry, he apologised for the way the campaign was run, and I think he should have nothing to fear if there\u2019s open, honest conclusions here and proper accountability and transparency around how all of this was done.\u201d <\/p>\n

Mr Andrews said he was happy that the report on the controversy was being sent to party members and that the matter would be discussed by the party.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad that we are getting it done before Christmas, frankly. I don\u2019t want to be dragging this into the new year. We\u2019ve such a busy agenda domestically, European, global issues, they\u2019re just huge,\u201d he said. \u201cI really hope that we will have an open, honest debate about the implications of the findings of the report.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier, MEP Billy Kelleher \u2013 who unsuccessfully contested the party\u2019s selection convention against Mr Gavin \u2013 said he expected to see the report \u201cat least a number of hours\u201d before the meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very important issue. The party has been fractured on this issue since Mr Gavin withdrew,\u201d he told RT\u00c9\u2019s Morning Ireland programme. <\/p>\n

He said he was hoping to find out \u201cthe truth\u201d from the report.<\/p>\n

He said he was \u201cprivy to some things … that cause me some disquiet,\u201d indicating that a key issue would be if Mr Martin or anyone close to him was aware of the issue of Mr Gavin owing money to a former tenant before the Fianna F\u00e1il vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were certainly rumours circulating in advance which in my view should certainly have raised alarm bells,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

If Mr Martin or other senior figures knew about the debt and did not inform TDs, it would be a \u201cgrievous breach of trust\u201d, he said. \u201cWe need to know who knew what and when and the timelines.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, he stressed he would wait for the report and declined to express confidence in Mr Martin\u2019s leadership until he saw it. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be wrong of me to say I have confidence until such time as I see the report,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Some TDs who are opposed to Mr Martin\u2019s leadership have been suggesting that the document could prompt a motion of no-confidence in the party leader, though it remains to be seen if there is sufficient support among TDs to put down \u2013 and then to win \u2013 such a motion.<\/p>\n

Minister for Justice Jim O\u2019Callaghan \u2013 considered to be Mr Martin\u2019s most likely successor \u2013 expressed his support for the leader on The Irish Times Inside Politics podcast on Monday. <\/a><\/p>\n

A determination to unseat Mr Martin, however, has grown among opponents since the presidential election debacle, and Tuesday night\u2019s meeting will give an indication of how wide support for such a move will be.<\/p>\n

Few Fianna F\u00e1il TDs believe that Mr Martin will lead them into the next general election, but many middle ground TDs have previously been sceptical about the wisdom of taking the drastic step of removing the leader who led them to general election success a year ago. \u2013 Additional reporting: PA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin has said he has \u2018absolute\u2019 confidence in his leadership of Fianna F\u00e1il as the parliamentary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[895,42,2043,1843,43,978,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-194654","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-fianna-fail","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-jim-gavin","11":"tag-micheal-martin","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-presidential-election","14":"tag-top-news","15":"tag-top-stories","16":"tag-topnews","17":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}