Taoiseach Micheál Martin will not put down a motion of confidence in his leadership of Fianna Fáil and says the controversy over the party’s disastrous presidential election has “dragged on too long”.
Responding to a suggestion from RTÉ’s David McCullagh that he could settle the unrest in his party by putting down a motion of confidence in himself, he replied: “I don’t believe I need to, I don’t believe I need to do that at all.”
Mr Martin again said he took “full responsibility” for the campaign but said it should be considered alongside other electoral successes in 2024, including the local, European and general elections.
Mr Martin said Jim Gavin repeatedly denied that he had any issue with a tenant when questioned on the subject by Fianna Fáil on a number of occasions. At the time the campaign was dealing with “allegations that were false” about Mr Gavin who said he “never had a journalist as a tenant”.
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There was no public record to confirm such a dispute and only “the primary sources” could provide that information, Mr Martin said. “Jim Gavin was adamant on the issue.”
However, he insisted that “Jim Gavin came to the table with significant strengths.”
Mr Martin said polling had been done on potential candidates. He rejected the suggestion Mr Gavin should not have been considered because he had no political experience. “Are we saying the presidency is exclusively a role for politicians?” he asked.
Mr Martin disputed the timeline for the declaration of interest by MEP Billy Kelleher in running. There had not been any indication of such interest in a WhatsApp message from Mr Kelleher on August 14th, Mr Martin said. “A phone call wouldn’t have gone amiss.”
“The WhatsApp from Billy on the 14th of August was that he certainly wasn’t going to be a candidate. That was what I took from that. Now Billy said I took the wrong conclusion from that and fair enough we all have different perspectives but the WhatsApp was very clear at the time,” Mr Martin said.
“But I don’t want to go back over all of that. Billy is a fine parliamentarian and so on but I got no indication from Billy that he wanted to be candidate until around the 26th or 27th.”
Mr Martin also rejected the suggestion that he “centralised” decisions, took matters into his own hands and did not involve members of the parliamentary party.
“I would take issue with that general characterisation. By the way, the previous year we won three general elections, we’re the largest party in the local elections. The point is, in terms of, you’ve got to look at this in the round, I said last night to the party, when I became leader in 2011, we had 20 seats. No one ever thought we’d be four seats in the European Parliament, and we’re back to four seats in European Parliament. That was a very effective election.
“Candidates were sounded out for the European election in the exact same way, it worked for us in that context, didn’t work on this occasion. We decided not to launch in August. We thought we’d be the wrong one to launch and in retrospect that was a wrong mistake and I was wrong.
“Everyone acted in good faith here. We wanted to win the election. We didn’t have other candidates that had a chance, let’s be frank, that’s the reality,” he said.
“The immediate polling after the nomination of Jim Gavin was positive, actually quite positive, and he was there both with the other candidates who were polled at that time and higher than any other Fianna Fáil prospect.
“Yes, we should have gone earlier in August, in retrospect. In previous campaigns, people went in August and it proved damaging to their campaign. And it’s a call you make at the time.”
