{"id":99077,"date":"2025-10-02T13:01:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T13:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/99077\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T13:01:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T13:01:07","slug":"fianna-fail-removes-another-social-media-video-involving-jim-gavin-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/99077\/","title":{"rendered":"Fianna F\u00e1il removes another social media video involving Jim Gavin \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a> has removed another social media<\/a> video recorded during Jim Gavin\u2019s<\/a> participation in a 10km race on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

In the video, which was shared on Mr Gavin\u2019s Instagram account, the Fianna F\u00e1il presidential<\/a> candidate said he had received a call from a named officer in the Defence Forces<\/a> serving in Lebanon<\/a> as a UN peacekeeper, and sent well-wishes to Irish troops serving as part of the mission. <\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for the campaign said there was no attempt to politicise anyone and it had removed the video \u201cout of an abundance of caution\u201d. <\/p>\n

She said there were no security implications arising from naming the peacekeeper, as Defence Forces personnel are regularly named and photographed by the media in advance of and during deployment. <\/p>\n

\u201cOut of an abundance of caution, we have removed the name referenced in the video. The Defence Forces is a non-political organisation. At no point was there an attempt to politicise anyone,\u201d the spokeswoman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cJim Gavin served in the Defence Forces for over 20 years and participated in the 10km run as he has done regularly over the years. For the avoidance of any doubt, the name has been removed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The video was shot as Mr Gavin completed a 10km run in aid of an organisation supporting Defence Forces veterans. <\/p>\n

Labour\u2019s defence spokesman Duncan Smith earlier warned that Mr Gavin needed to be careful to safeguard the Defence Forces\u2019 apolitical status in his campaign. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Fianna F\u00e1il candidate needs to be very clear in his campaigning that our Defence Forces need to remain apolitical. It is a cornerstone of our democracy. He can be rightly proud of his own Defence Forces record but that does not make him a Defence Forces candidate. He has already had to to delete videos in relation to this so he must be very careful,\u201d Mr Smith said.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Jim Gavin campaign shot drone footage at two events without proper permissionOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Fianna F\u00e1il took down another campaign video which featured images of uniformed Defence Forces personnel. <\/p>\n

A party spokeswoman confirmed that the video, which also contained an image of Mr Gavin with Defence Forces chief of staff Lieutenant General Rossa Mulcahy, was removed following media queries on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

Under the Defence Act 1954, a member of the Defence Forces in uniform may not canvass on behalf of any political organisation or address a meeting of a political organisation. <\/p>\n

The Gavin campaign spokeswoman said the Defence Forces had been in touch with it regarding the video but that it was already under review at that point.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Fianna F\u00e1il said \u201cevery day, footage is taken of Jim Gavin as he continues a very active and energetic campaign across the country. Photos and videos are kept under regular review and often edited.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a veteran, Jim participated in this event as he does frequently.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Defence Forces spokesman said that \u00d3glaigh na h\u00c9ireann \u201cis an apolitical organisation. The An Cosant\u00f3ir 10km road race and 5km walk is open to all permanent Defence Forces, reserve Defence Forces, Department of Defence and veterans\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Gavin completed the race on behalf of the Organisation of National Ex-Service Personnel. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fianna F\u00e1il has removed another social media video recorded during Jim Gavin\u2019s participation in a 10km race on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,9217,18,13,14,4771,6,19,17,19487,11,12,15,16,5,59,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-99077","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-defence-forces","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-fianna-fail","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-jim-gavin","19":"tag-latest-news","20":"tag-latestnews","21":"tag-main-news","22":"tag-mainnews","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-presidential-election","25":"tag-top-stories","26":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99077","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=99077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}