DANA ROSEMARY Scallon became a US citizen prior to putting her name forward for the 1997 presidential election but a decision was taken not to inform the electorate, her sister told a court in Iowa in 2008.
Ms Scallon, who is again a candidate for the presidency, confirmed yesterday that she was a US citizen but said she certainly had not tried to keep the fact secret. “I don’t see it as any problem at all,” she said.
Her sister Susan Stein gave evidence in 2008 that she discussed her sister’s citizenship with Dana’s husband, Damien Scallon, and Dana’s brother and adviser in her current presidential campaign, John Brown, during the presidential contest in 1997.
“When she ran for the presidential election in Ireland, John and Damien and I had a meeting,” Ms Stein told the US court. “She had just acquired her American citizenship, at the same time she was running for president of a foreign country, and the decision was made that it wouldn’t look very good if the people of Ireland knew she was an American citizen.”
Ms Scallon said yesterday her husband and her brother could not remember the conversation. She had not sought to keep her US citizenship secret. “Why would I? Wasn’t de Valera ?”
She said that when going through the citizenship process she had been assured she could retain her Irish citizenship and that she wouldn’t have become a US citizen otherwise. “I don’t vote there. I only vote here.”
People becoming naturalised US citizens take an oath renouncing their allegiance to all other states. Ms Scallon said she could not recall taking the oath. She said that being a US citizen did not bar her from becoming president of Ireland.
Ms Stein, who lives in Iowa but came to Ireland for her sister’s 1997 election campaign, made her comments during a bitter row over the ownership of some of Dana’s religious recordings.
Ms Scallon said her sister’s comments were made in the context of a family dispute in which each side put forward its case. The sides reached an agreement in 2009 and it was a condition that they would not comment further, she said.
In his ruling in the dispute, Iowa judge Charles Wolle found that none of the witnesses in the case, who included Dana, spoke “only the truth” when giving their sworn testimony. He said both Dana and her sister had “convenient memories to some extent”. Ms Scallon said yesterday the judge had made comments about everyone and “that’s a judge’s prerogative”.