Sorry Seán, but tweet row wasn’t what lost you the 2011 election
With Gallagher back in the Áras fray, let’s not forget the real reasons he didn’t win the race last time out
IT WAS a moment few people had imagined they would ever see: Pat Kenny grilling Presidential candidate Seán Gallagher in a TV debate… again.
And yet there we were: seven years after the now-infamous RTÉ Frontline debate, the two were facing off again – albeit this time on Virgin Media One. If there was animosity, it didn’t show. Kenny referred somewhat ambiguously to ‘what happened last time’, while Gallagher spoke of the devastating effect of events. Nobody said the word ‘Tweetgate’, but it hung silently in the air between them. And no wonder: for years now, Gallagher has given the impression that a single fake tweet cost him the presidency in 2011; that had it not been for RTÉ’s error in failing to authenticate that tweet, he would have beaten Michael D Higgins and spent the last seven years in the Áras.
It’s a powerful story, which helps him answer the question: ‘Why are you running again, having lost so comprehensively before?’ He can argue that he’s only standing again because last time out he was robbed of his rightful crown; this is about justice. It’s a powerful argument, with one slight flaw.
That’s not what happened.
SEÁN Gallagher had entered the 2011 race largely unknown. What profile he enjoyed came via the Dragons’ Den TV show, which back then was something of a novelty. The general image was of a wealthy, self-made businessman, and at a time when politicians were deemed to have bankrupted the country, that was an appealing alternative.
His decision to run as an Independent, given his strong ties to Fianna Fáil, was questioned. Of course it made sense. Back then Fianna Fáil was politically toxic – after being demolished in the general election earlier that year, it hadn’t even bothered to run its own candidate in the Presidential election.
But Gallagher’s decision seemed more than a little disingenuous to some. And as soon as he handed in his nomination papers at the end of that September, he was regularly tackled on his connections to Fianna Fáil. He would claim in radio interviews that he left the party in 2009, having been an intermittent member since he was a teenager.
But the closer we got to polling day, the more a very different story emerged. It was revealed that Gallagher had continued to be a member of the party’s National Executive until the end of 2010.
That very same year – a year after he claimed he had left – Gallagher appeared in an Ógra Fianna Fáil video talking proudly about his time in the youth organisation and how Ógra was important in producing future leaders ‘of the party and the country’.
It was also revealed that Gallagher had continued to be appointed to State boards and quangos by Fianna Fáil ministers. Indeed, he was one of an elite few (60 out of 3,364 members of 367 agencies, boards, committees, councils, execu- tives, task forces and working groups) to be appointed to three or more quangos.
They included the Drogheda Port Authority, Inter-Trade Ireland and the scandal-racked training body Fás, since renamed Solas. Did that really sound like a man who had very little to do with Fianna Fáil – or a man desperately trying to deny just how major a player he truly was in the party?
After all, in a letter Gallagher wrote in 2009 to the heads of Louth’s Fianna Fáil cumainn, he highlighted his ‘30 years of work’ for the party. In an effort to get their votes to get elected onto the national executive, he listed all of the work he had done for them. It was an impressive list.
Of course there was also the time, when he was just 28, that he became a full-time political adviser to former health minister Rory O’Hanlon. And his work with Charlie Haughey. ‘I first served on the National Executive with Charlie Haughey from 1985 to 1987 when I was head of Ógra Fianna Fáil nationally,’ he wrote. He also mentioned his fundraising efforts.
HE said: ‘I later worked full time for the party in Fianna Fáil headquarters, supporting members like yourself in raising much-needed funds for the work of the party.’ And he pointed out how he had helped Fianna Fáil’s Séamus Kirk retain his seat in the 2007 general election by acting as his director of elections.
In February 2011, he attended the launch of the general election campaigns of Fianna Fáil candidates Charlie McConalogue and Margaret Conlon.
These revelations were dou- ble-edged. They allowed dyed-in-the-wool Fianna Fáil supporters to vote for a man they believed was ‘one of us’, but to many others, that association was toxic. As the then Transport Minister, one Leo Varadkar, put it: if Gallagher were elected, it would show that Irish people had ‘learned very little as a country in the past four years’.
But if Gallagher’s attempts to deny his Fianna Fáil connections were disquieting, what began to emerge about his business dealings was far worse. Until then, nobody had ever questioned his track record – because nobody had needed to. But now he was a realistic contender for the Presidency, the press started asking questions. And the answers were surprising.
It emerged, for instance, that he had helped start his first company, Home Wiring Systems, with a seed loan of over €20,000 he got from Louth County Enterprise Board, of which he had been chief executive until less than a year before. But a year later, he set up a new firm, Smarthomes, and three months later Home Wiring Systems ceased trading. The debt to the Enterprise
Board was not transferred over to the new firm – only after three years of legal dispute did he pay it back.
In an interview with Philip Boucher-Hayes on RTÉ Radio 1’s Drivetime in mid-October 2011, Gallagher said the new company ‘was a continuation and perhaps more of an expansion out from the original product that we had developed, based on the learning I suppose that had taken place in the first company’.
When asked why didn’t he transfer the debt that he owed to the Enterprise Board to the new company, he replied: ‘I sought financial and legal advice at the time and the advice that I was given was that the liabilities did not follow the new company...
‘Their professional advice was it did not need to be repaid. I took that advice. Later the Enterprise Board then asserted a different view. I was happy to consider that and I instructed my finance and legal team to address it and to make sure they came to a solution that was acceptable to both sides. And that did take place.’
It also emerged that Smarthomes had got a staggering total of €830,000 in State grants over the years. The question being asked was this: was Seán Gallagher a great businessman, or a businessman who was great at getting Government grants?
More was to follow, however. It was revealed that Gallagher and his Smarthomes business partner, Derek Roddy, had been paid almost €860,000 from their company when it was losing money. Even while appearing as a successful entrepreneur and investor on Dragons’ Den, he was leaving investors in his own business severely disgruntled after they made significant losses. Gallagher refused to be drawn on the matter and a spokesman for Smarthomes insisted: ‘The remuneration at the time for the directors was in line with the level of business the company was carrying out.’
And yet there was even more to come. It emerged also that around this time, in 2009, €82,000 had been paid to Gallagher by one of his companies, Beach House Training and Consulting Ltd, in the form of an interest-free loan. This would have been in breach of the law as it amounted to a sum greater than 10% of the company’s assets.
Gallagher insisted it was ‘an accounting mistake’ and no breach of company law had happened as the money had been repaid to another account as soon as the error was spotted.
‘This was an accounting mistake, in terms of which account the money went into,’ he said. ‘Within four weeks the money was moved into the correct account and there was no breach of company law.’
Even as Gallagher went into the Frontline debate of October 24, 2011, concerns were growing. Criticism had grown further after it was revealed he had charged GAA clubs up to €5,000 to fill out a grant application form for them. Sources at the clubs involved suggested he was worth the money because his political connections increased the chances of success.
AND while his team often cites a poll showing him leading ahead of the last debate, different polls had shown huge variations – several with Michael D Higgins leading. Meanwhile, even a cursory look back at the media coverage and online discussions from the time show that the national mood had changed radically.
And then came The Frontline. While his supporters focus on the bogus tweet, Gallagher was in difficulty long before that. It is worth actually looking at the transcript of the first part of the show to appreciate just how much.
Glenna Lynch: ‘My question’s for Seán. Seán, given the trail of misunderstandings and confusions and accounting errors that seem to have littered your career so far, and given your own total refusal to ever answer a straight question in relation to any of those details, and amidst increasing voter worry that you may just not have the integrity for this job and that you may actually bring the Presidency into disrepute at some point in the future as these things unfold. Given all of that, Seán, do you still feel that you should offer yourself up for Presidency?
Seán Gallagher: ‘Absolutely. I don’t believe that there is anything in any of the negative campaigning and the raising of those issues that shows that in any way I have shown anything but integrity. And there is nothing in there that I have ever done that can cast any aspersions on my character. Everything I have ever done is 100% above board and I stand over my track record for a decade and a half...’
Kenny: ‘Seán, hang on a second. The issue of the rather large cheque that rested in your account until it was pointed out to you by your accountants that it should have been in your company account rather than your in personal account...’
Gallagher: ‘It wasn’t a personal account... Let me explain...’ Kenny: ‘Hang on a second, I just want to know, how does someone mislay a cheque for 89 grand?’ (Audience claps) Lynch: ‘Seán, what customer pays somebody a cheque for €89,000? Who could that customer have been? This is for motivational speaking. That’s an extraordinary fee and I think most people would be really interested to know where did this cheque come from? It’s an incredible size.’ Gallagher: ‘Firstly it is not related to speaking, it is related to business interests I have. Can I explain that the cheque in fact was made out to the wrong account and unfortunately, the book-keeper’s secretary, who works for me, put it into the account which was written on the cheque. When the accountant’s firm, who does my accounts, came across it and spotted it in the wrong account, what they did was alert me to the fact and within less than four weeks the matter was resolved and I am absolutely 100% happy and satisfied from my accountancy firm that no breach took place.’
LYNCH: ‘Seán, do you understand that what you just said makes absolutely no sense to anybody who is involved in any kind of a business? Was the money income from that company or was it not? If it was, it was correctly put in your accounts as a loan to Seán Gallagher; a loan that was almost 70% of the profits of that company for that year? You do understand that, don’t you?’ Gallagher: ‘No, let me explain...’ Lynch: ‘Please do.’ Gallagher: ‘You’re misrepresenting me. I have more than one company and therefore the company name on the cheque was incorrect, and the cheque was lodged to the name that was on the cheque. Therefore, by the time that the accountants in doing reconciliation of the accounts noticed it, they then allocated that as a loan. I didn’t take the money out of the account, the money was in a different account. The book-keeper rectified that with the accountant and it was placed back in the right account and no breach took place.’
Lynch: ‘So, on which account did you actually pay VAT or tax or anything else? In which account was it real, Seán?’ Gallagher: ‘I can tell you now...’ Lynch: ‘The name of the account would be very helpful... or the company that is involved.’
Gallagher: ‘I can tell you now 100% that I am absolutely 100% tax compliant. There is a tax clearance certificate on my website, absolutely cast no aspersions on myself.’
Gallagher’s decision the following morning to personally attack Lynch for asking legitimate questions only made things worse.
And it is in that context that the bogus tweet needs to be seen. Yes, it was damaging – and clearly an error by RTÉ – but it was one of a myriad of issues that had arisen to cast doubt on the would-be president. And so, as we head into polling day, the last word must belong to Glenna Lynch. When it was announced that Gallagher planned to run again, Ms Lynch tweeted simply: ‘Sincerely hope that voters have longer memories than we’re often credited with.’
We’ll find out on Friday.