{"id":67289,"date":"2025-10-08T14:23:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T14:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/67289\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T14:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T14:23:07","slug":"jim-gavin-tenant-journalist-niall-donald-says-there-could-have-been-a-better-outcome-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/67289\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Gavin tenant journalist Niall Donald says there could have been \u2018a better outcome\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former tenant owed money by Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a> presidential<\/a> nominee Jim Gavin<\/a> has said he feels sorry for his ex-landlord. <\/p>\n

Niall Donald, deputy editor of the Sunday World, has spoken publicly for the first time about his claim that he is owed \u20ac3,300 by the former candidate, who has ended his campaign over the controversy.<\/p>\n

The revelation about the overpaid rent was disclosed last Saturday in the Irish Independent, which along with the Sunday World is part of the Mediahuis<\/a> media group. It led to Mr Gavin ending his campaign on Sunday night.<\/p>\n

For the past number of days, media reports on the controversy did not identify Mr Donald, who spoke to reporters on the basis his name would not be used.<\/p>\n

On the latest episode of the Crime Matters podcast, which he co-hosts, Mr Donald said he believed there could have been a \u201cbetter outcome\u201d if Mr Gavin\u2019s handlers had taken a different approach to the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes the punishment fit the crime? Probably not. I kind of feel sorry for him that he wasn\u2019t handled better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, a solicitor acting for Mr Gavin said, following the release of the podcast, that he had contacted Mr Donald and explained to him he had been instructed to repay him the \u20ac3,300 \u201csubject to clarifying two issues\u201d.<\/p>\n

The journalist told how he mistakenly allowed direct debits to continue from his bank account to Mr Gavin\u2019s bank account in the months after he ended his tenancy of a Dublin apartment in 2009.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0In an ideal world Jim Gavin would have been running someone else\u2019s campaignOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Despite repeated requests to Mr Gavin for the repayment of \u20ac3,300 in overpaid rent, the debt remains outstanding.<\/p>\n

In 2010, Mr Donald engaged a solicitor to write a letter to Mr Gavin demanding the return of the money and threatening legal action.<\/p>\n

As he did not have Mr Gavin\u2019s home address, he said he sent the letter to the apartment and to his then workplace: the Air Corps base in Baldonnel, Co Dublin. <\/p>\n

He said he also delivered a copy in an envelope, marked private and confidential, to Mr Gavin\u2019s parents at their home and asked them to pass it on to their son.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said: \u2018I\u2019m really sorry to call to your house. I\u2019m a former tenant of Jim\u2019s. I\u2019m just looking to get a letter to him.\u2019 They were really, really nice,\u201d said Mr Donald.<\/p>\n

However, some hours later, after midnight, he received a call from Mr Gavin, who, he said, was \u201creally, really irate\u201d about Mr Donald calling to his parents\u2019 home.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, he calmed down,\u201d the journalist said. \u201cHe accepted he owed me the money. He said: \u2018I\u2019m transferring it now.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

But the money never arrived, Mr Donald told his podcast co-host, Nicola Tallant. <\/p>\n

Legal proceedings were not taken because of the costs involved and eventually, Mr Donald said, he dropped the matter.<\/p>\n

Mr Donald said his work with the Sunday World involves him working alongside colleagues from the Irish Independent and that he regularly told the story in the newsroom of how he was owed money by Mr Gavin. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been telling this story for years,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

What had happened to him had been hard to forget, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have ever been in those circumstances where you feel you have been ripped off, it gives you this feeling of being powerless,\u201d he said, adding that he was \u201creally struggling financially\u201d at the time.<\/p>\n

He said he did not think it was a major story until Mr Gavin was selected by Fianna F\u00e1il as the party\u2019s candidate for the presidential election. <\/p>\n

He then felt it was better not to publish it in the Sunday World because of his personal involvement with the matter.<\/p>\n

Although a report outlining the unpaid debt was published on Saturday, he said he told the story to Fionn\u00e1n Sheahan, Ireland editor at Mediahuis, weeks earlier.<\/p>\n

The published story focused on Mr Gavin\u2019s financial difficulties in the wake of the property crash. <\/p>\n

Mr Donald said it was only then that he learned the former Dublin GAA manager had been in severe financial difficulty at the time of the rent overpayment.<\/p>\n

If he had been told by Mr Gavin that he was in financial difficulty and would pay him back when he could, he said he would have said: \u201cNo problem, pay me back in time.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0What does Jim Gavin\u2019s decision to end campaign mean for this presidential race \u2013 and future ones?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He said he understood that Mr Sheahan first contacted Fianna F\u00e1il about the issue weeks ago.<\/p>\n

The published story contained a quote from the party saying Mr Gavin had no recollection of the unpaid debt. <\/p>\n

\u201cI found that kind of frustrating because all through those years, I had a recollection of it and I had a bad feeling about it,\u201d said Mr Donald.<\/p>\n

The next day he contacted Fianna F\u00e1il and said he was unhappy with what it had said, as it suggested the story was not true. <\/p>\n

He told the party he had records relating to the unpaid debt.<\/p>\n

In a statement announcing that he was ceasing his campaign on Sunday night, Mr Gavin said: \u201cI made a mistake that was not in keeping with my character and the standards I set myself. I am now taking steps to address the matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Donald said he felt sorry for Mr Gavin when he announced he was ending his campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople make mistakes,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a small amount of money in the scheme of things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although he does not feel guilty about the collapse of Mr Gavin\u2019s campaign, he said: \u201cI do kind of think there could have been a better outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Gavin\u2019s solicitor Eamonn Shannon of Dublin-based law firm Shannon O\u2019Connor told RT\u00c9 in a statement: \u201cWe have reached out to Mr Donald and explained to him that we have been instructed to make the payment of \u20ac3,300 to him subject to clarifying two issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe await hearing back from Mr Donald and once those two issues are clarified, we can then proceed to close out on the matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

The solicitor added: \u201cFrom Mr Gavin\u2019s initial consideration of the podcast, it is clear there are inaccuracies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Shannon did not specify what the inaccuracies were. <\/p>\n

Mr Donald confirmed to The Irish Times that he had been contacted by Mr Gavin\u2019s solicitor and that he would respond to him.<\/p>\n

The Irish Times was unable to reach Mr Gavin directly on his mobile phone on Wednesday seeking comment but left a message asking whether he wished to respond to Mr Donald\u2019s interview. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0The Irish Times view on Jim Gavin\u2019s withdrawal: a Fianna F\u00e1il fiascoOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former tenant owed money by Fianna F\u00e1il presidential nominee Jim Gavin has said he feels sorry for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[895,61,60,2043,45673,43,978],"class_list":["post-67289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-fianna-fail","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jim-gavin","tag-mediahuis","tag-news","tag-presidential-election"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67289","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=67289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}