FG IN TURMOIL OVER SHAMBLES OF PERRY TRIAL
Revealed: case could cost party €500,000 and top boss his job
FINE Gael is left counting the cost of a disastrous €500,000 court case over ex-minister John Perry’s candiditure in the upcoming general election.
Court documents seen by the Irish Mail on Sunday reveal embarrassing details the party was forced to admit about the
conduct of its officials and a controversial selection convention. Now senior party members have sought an investigation as to why the court case was allowed to happen.
Mr Perry, who lost the convention, sued his own party and in an embarrassing climbdown, the case was settled and Mr Perry was added to the ticket. Now Fine Gael faces a number of serious problems. These include:
Seeing up to €500,000 of its election war chest wiped out by the court costs which it has to cover;
Facing accusations that it tried to suppress evidence in the fiveday High Court case;
Seeing general secretary Tom Curran drawn into controversy over whether or not he sought to have two votes removed from Mr Perry’s tally.
Seeing revelations of an internal letter, highly critical of the organisation of the convention by party western area region organiser Darragh Kelly, which undermined Fine Gael’s defence that the event had generally been well organised.
Transcripts of dramatic court exchanges show that FG had failed to provide the court with damaging documents under a legal process know as discovery.
After a threat from Mr Perry’s legal team, the documents arrived
‘A sinister corrupting of the democratic process’
the following court day. One of the missing documents, which Mr Perry’s legal team had to secure, alleges that Mr Curran had suggested ‘removing’ votes for Mr Perry at the convention because two of his potential supporters were ineligible to vote.
Fine Gael was accused of committing a ‘sinister corrupting of the democratic process’. It was also accused of ‘suppressing’ evidence. Both allegations were rejected by party officials, but key differences in testimony remain between the two men at the centre of the case, Mr Curran and Mr Kelly.
The case is set to almost wipe out the money Fine Gael has just raised in its annual national draw. This will infuriate rank-and-file members who toiled to sell tickets for the €600k fundraiser. A senior elected figure told the MoS that Enda Kenny will have to act against anyone perceived to have been involved in the ‘legal catastrophe’.
‘If there wasn’t a general election coming up, the parliamentary party would be looking for Tom Curran to go,’ said a Fine Gael minister last night.
‘His enemies in the party were already many. Now a lot of colleagues are saying he’ll have to go after the election.’ Another said the calamity could be traced to the top of the party. ‘Fine Gael knew there were irregularities. A week after the convention there were problems,’ he said.
He added that Enda Kenny could have stopped it going to court by adding John Perry to the ticket, which is within the leader’s power.
At the Sligo-Leitrim election convention at the Mayflower Hotel in Drumshanbo, on October 16, TD Tony McLoughlin and ex-TD Gerry Reynolds were selected by party members. But controversial TD and ex-minister Mr Perry claimed there were serious irregularities.
Lawyers for Fine Gael held that the convention was well-organised and orderly and it was put to Mr Perry that his description of panic and chaos was ‘a gross exaggeration’ because he was disappointed.
But one of the most serious court accusations was that Fine Gael failed to discover documents and that it ‘suppressed’ evidence. At the outset of a court case each side is required to discover, or file, all documents in their possession that are deemed to be relevant. During this case, to avoid its potential collapse, Fine Gael accepted it hadn’t revealed all it should have.
Court proceedings were relatively mundane until Darragh Kelly took the witness stand on Friday, December 19. Mr Kelly, a former journalist, oversaw the election convention. He prepared two versions of a report after the convention, which have been seen by the MoS, which have crucial differences.
He was asked about a report he sent to his boss Mr Curran on November 17 when he explained the events of the night. Mr Kelly had provided the court with this version of the report through discovery compliance. It made no mention of the issue of the two ‘extra’ voters. Then a similar document, which Mr Kelly accepted was a draft and should have been handed up, was presented by Mr Perry’s counsel, Michael O’Higgins.
It read: ‘While recording the registration trends of voters during the evening, it was suggested to me by the general secretary to remove two votes belonging to John Perry prior to the commencement of the count process. This I did not do as a matter of conscience.’
Mr O’Higgins then suggested that this is, ‘a sinister corrupting of the democratic process’. Mr Kelly said ‘no corruption took place.’ But was asked: ‘Are you taking a hit for the team’. Mr Kelly replied: ‘No, I decided to take that out myself.’
But when asked: ‘Did the general secretary suggest to you to remove two votes belonging to John Perry? Mr Kelly replied: ‘Yes.’
Mr Curran took the stand on Monday, December 21. He said he thought Mr Kelly was referring to a problem with members from a non-affiliated Sligo branch having voted when they shouldn’t have. Attempts to find and talk to the two members were unsuccessful,
Mr Curran testified: ‘I said to him, “What are you going to do now? You are hardly going to take two votes out of the box because you don’t
know who these people voted for and it can’t be done anyway.” You know, it was a throwaway remark. That was it.’
Earlier that day a letter sent by Mr Curran to Mr Kelly on October 23 was belatedly given to the court under discovery. Despite Fine Gael’s defence being that the convention was generally well organised this letter outlined a different scenario.
‘I write to express my concern at what I can only describe as the chaotic organisation around member registration, voting area and the conduct of the count at last week’s Sligo-Leitrim Convention,’ Mr Curran had written. He outlined eight ‘elementary mistakes’ which include ‘discrepancies between the registered voting lists and those who voted’. He also wrote that the ‘voting area was chaotic’.
Mr Curran, seemingly worried, wrote that the stakes were high because of ‘threatened legal action’.
However, in a letter written on November 9, Fine Gael top brass took a different tack.
Solicitor Cahir O’Higgins, acting for Mr Perry, corresponded with Fine Gael headquarters about alleged disorganisation at Drumshanbo.
Fine Gael’s solicitor Kevin O’Higgins replied: ‘I have met with the general secretary, Tom Curran, in relation to the matters raised by you.
‘In the circumstances, the general secretary regards the convention as having proceeded, not without a glitch or two, but reasonably satisfactorily nonetheless. Indeed, he has observed that this particular convention was remarkable for its lack of rancour and division.’
In testimony, Mr Curran later explained his letter of October 23 during his examination by his own barrister.
‘Driving away from Drumshanbo on the night, I was annoyed by what I thought were a couple of basic mistakes.
‘It was written by me… a week later. I had to think long and hard. I had a number of ongoing HR issues with Darragh Kelly, to do with other matters and I just wanted to put on file my unhappiness with some of the things that happened on the night.’
Mr Curran was not cross-examined on this letter or on the conflict of evidence between himself and Mr Kelly, and the case was settled the next day after conciliatory remarks by Mr Curran about Deputy Perry being potentially adding to the ticket.
Asked questions this week, the Fine Gael Party, Mr Curran and Mr Kelly declined to comment.