Lucinda Creighton broke law with unsolicited phone calls

Former Renua leader Lucinda Creighton broke the law when her general election team rang a constituent on her mobile number three times seeking her vote.

Ms Creighton had used the phone number obtained from a previous contact with the woman, who had not consented to calls for election or marketing purposes.

Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon has issued a formal decision that Ms Creighton breached the Data Protection Acts when she processed the woman's number in a manner incompatible with the purpose for which it had been originally obtained.

Christine Murray from Dublin complained to the commissioner after she was called on her mobile number three times by a person asking her to vote for the then Renua leader in Dublin Bay South, just before the February election.

Ms Murray said she hung up on the first two calls and was “furious” about them as she had been waiting for news of her son who had just been released from hospital.

“On the day of the election I got a third call. This time number was not withheld. She was a different woman but asking the same thing as the previous callers,” she told The Irish Times in March.

Ms Murray said she told the woman to “get lost” and then called the logged number back but it was not answered.

Ms Murray said she had not given her number to any political campaign. She believed, however, that Ms Creighton had it from a contact with her office in 2010.

At the time, Ms Creighton said he thought it was a “common occurrence” that politicians used numbers and email addresses in the run-up to elections.

“It happens all the time. Maybe that’s a grey area. I would be shocked if TDs all over the country weren’t emailing their constituents asking them to vote for them,” she said.

She could not immediately be contacted for comment on Thursday.

All candidates had been warned by the commissioner in advance of the general election that they were not to make such contact with people who had not consented to their details being used in this way.

Seven official complaints were made by members of the public about unsolicited calls, text messages or emails from election candidates.

Ms Creighton stood down in early May after losing her seat in the general election.