{"id":106243,"date":"2025-10-07T04:53:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T04:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/106243\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T04:53:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T04:53:07","slug":"micheal-martins-position-under-threat-as-fianna-fail-tds-smell-blood-in-the-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/106243\/","title":{"rendered":"Miche\u00e1l Martin’s position under threat as Fianna F\u00e1il TDs smell ‘blood in the air’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin’s hold on his Fianna F\u00e1il parliamentary party is under threat, with TDs claiming there is “blood in the air” in the aftermath of Jim Gavin’s sensational withdrawal from the presidential election.<\/p>\n

Mr Gavin, backed by Mr Martin over party stalwart Billy Kelleher in last month’s nomination vote, withdrew from the race in extraordinary circumstances late on Sunday, doing so amid claims that he had not repaid \u20ac3,300 paid in error by a former tenant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr Gavin had initially denied having any recollection of the incident, but public expenditure minister Jack Chambers said on Monday that Mr Gavin\u2019s account of the rental dispute was \u201ccontradicted\u201d by documents provided to the party by the tenant.<\/p>\n

A Fianna F\u00e1il spokesperson confirmed Mr Gavin told the party he was formerly a landlord during the internal vetting process.<\/p>\n

The party said Mr Gavin denied ever having an issue with a former tenant during that process, a position supported by Mr Martin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speaking on RT\u00c9’s Six One News,\u00a0Mr Martin said Mr Gavin was asked several times if he had any difficulties<\/a> with tenants and was informed he did not.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cWhat happens in a situation like this [is] you say to any candidate: \u2018Is there anything in your life that we need to know? Is there anything that happened in the past?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cRepeatedly, Jim was asked: \u2018Had you ever any issue with a tenant.’ He said: \u2018Absolutely not.'”<\/p>\n

Mr Martin added: \u201cWhat happened here, there was an issue in his life back in and around 2009. He clearly did not deal with it at that time or since, and probably buried it somewhere in the recesses of his mind, and didn’t deal with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe consequences of that have now come home.\u201d<\/p>\n

‘Calm the horses’<\/p>\n

Within Fianna F\u00e1il, parliamentary party members said Mr Martin’s leadership has been weakened by the controversy. TDs said on Monday that Mr Martin had phoned them in a bid to “calm the horses”, but one TD said there was a \u201cscent of blood in the air\u201d after Mr Gavin\u2019s campaign collapsed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Jim experiment was a shitshow from start to finish,\u201d one TD said. \u201cThis is serious now in the sense that the grassroots are livid, the canvassers and [people are asking]: \u2018Why didn\u2019t we pick one of our own?\u2019”<\/p>\n

One TD said the party had been sold a \u201cJim dream\u201d and told it would be \u201cthe right thing for the party in Dublin\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s no anger with Jim at all,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n

One TD suggested that it is \u201c50\/50\u201d whether Mr Martin will still be Taoiseach at Christmas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m Jim O\u2019Callaghan, I\u2019m pulling the trigger this week. The boys will never be more vulnerable. There is stuff happening behind the scenes.\u201d<\/p>\n

One TD suggested that the Taoiseach \u201cforced\u201d Jim Gavin on them, adding that Mr Martin had \u201cmade a bollocks of it”.<\/p>\n

Fianna F\u00e1il will hold a parliamentary party meeting on Wednesday, at which meeting one TD said they hope people will \u201cstart being honest\u201d. One TD suggested the \u201cwrath of Miche\u00e1l has weakened\u201d.<\/p>\n

When asked if they believe Mr Martin will ask the party to row in behind Fine Gael\u2019s Heather Humphreys, one TD suggested there would be a revolt if he attempted to.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we are told to row in behind Heather, Miche\u00e1l will get decapitated right there. Never mind losing his job,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

‘Poor judgement’<\/p>\n

Cork South Central TD S\u00e9amus McGrath said there was \u201cfundamentally poor judgement\u201d shown by the selection of a candidate without any political experience.<\/a>\n <\/p>\n

\u201cBefore the rental property issue surfaced, his campaign was already in trouble. Many loyal Fianna F\u00e1il supporters were not voting for him because they did not believe he had the required experience,\u201d Mr McGrath said.<\/p>\n

Another TD said he believes Mr Gavin lost his composure early in the campaign, saying he wondered \u201cif his heart was in it\u201d after the first debate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a right mess,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

Another parliamentary party member said \u201cappalling judgement\u201d was shown in Mr Gavin\u2019s selection, while adding, even without the controversy over the rental payment, his campaign was \u201cfucked anyway\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, one senior Fianna F\u00e1il minister told the Irish Examiner that Mr Martin and Jack Chambers “both have enough political credit to get through this. However, that credit is seriously diminished by it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin’s hold on his Fianna F\u00e1il parliamentary party is under threat, with TDs claiming there is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,4771,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,59,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-106243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-fianna-fail","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-presidential-election","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}