The former tenant owed money by Fianna Fáil presidential nominee Jim Gavin has said he feels sorry for his ex-landlord.
Niall Donald, deputy editor of the Sunday World, has spoken publicly for the first time about his claim that he is owed €3,300 by the former candidate, who has ended his campaign over the controversy.
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 media group.
For the past number of days, media reports on the controversy did not identify Mr Donald, who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity.
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Mr Donald addressed the matter on the latest episode of the Crime World podcast, which he co-hosts with Nicola Tallant. He said he believed there could have been a “better outcome” if Mr Gavin’s handlers had taken a different approach to the issue.
“Does the punishment fit the crime? Probably not. I kind of feel sorry for him that he wasn’t handled better,” he said.
On Wednesday, a solicitor acting for Mr Gavin said he had contacted Mr Donald about repaying the €3,300 “subject to clarifying two issues”.
On the podcast, the journalist said he mistakenly allowed direct debits to continue from his bank account to Mr Gavin’s bank account in the months after he ended his tenancy of a Dublin apartment in 2009.
[ In an ideal world Jim Gavin would have been running someone else’s campaignOpens in new window ]
In 2010, Mr Donald engaged a solicitor to write a letter to Mr Gavin demanding the return of the money.
As he did not have Mr Gavin’s home address, he said he sent the letter to the apartment and to his workplace. He also delivered a copy to Mr Gavin’s parents at their home and asked them to pass it on.
“I said, ‘I’m really sorry to call to your house. I’m a former tenant of Jim’s, I’m just looking to get a letter to him’. They were really nice,” said Mr Donald.
However, some hours later he received a call from Mr Gavin, who, he said, was “irate” about Mr Donald calling to his parents’ home.
“Ultimately, he calmed down,” the journalist said. “He accepted he owed me the money. He said ‘I’m transferring it now’.”
Legal proceedings were not taken because of the costs involved and eventually, Mr Donald said, he dropped the matter.
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.
“If you have ever been in those circumstances where you feel you have been ripped off, it gives you this feeling of being powerless.” Mr Donald said he was “struggling financially” at the time.
Last weekend’s story in the Irish Independent contained a quote from Fianna Fáil saying Mr Gavin had no recollection of the debt, which Mr Donald found “frustrating”.
The next day he contacted Fianna Fáil and said he was unhappy with what it had said.
In a statement announcing that he was ceasing his campaign on Sunday night, Mr Gavin said: “I made a mistake that was not in keeping with my character and the standards I set myself.”
Mr Donald said he felt sorry for Mr Gavin when he announced he was ending his campaign.
“People make mistakes,” he said. “It’s a small amount of money in the scheme of things.”
Although he does not feel guilty about the collapse of Mr Gavin’s campaign, he said: “I do kind of think there could have been a better outcome.”
Mr Gavin’s solicitor, Eamonn Shannon, told RTÉ in a statement: “We await hearing back from Mr Donald and once those two issues are clarified, we can then proceed to close out on the matter.”
The solicitor added: “From Mr Gavin’s initial consideration of the podcast, it is clear there are inaccuracies.”
[ The Irish Times view on Jim Gavin’s withdrawal: a Fianna Fáil fiascoOpens in new window ]
