INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE Seán Gallagher yesterday battled to get his faltering presidential campaign back on track after struggling to answer questions about his business dealings and involvement in a Fianna Fáil fundraiser during Monday night’s televised debate.
In media interviews yesterday, he categorically denied he had ever collected a €5,000 cheque from a businessman, and convicted fuel smuggler, for a Fianna Fáil fund-raiser in Co Louth in 2008.
The denial came after an apparent concession on RTÉ's Frontlineprogramme the previous night that he might have done so. However, later yesterday, the businessman Hugh Morgan issued a lengthy statement alleging Mr Gallagher collected the cheque from him at Morgan Fuels headquarters in Co Armagh.
During the debate involving the seven presidential candidates, Mr Gallagher also had difficulties in explaining a director’s loan that breached company law, when questioned by a member of the audience.
Yesterday, he refused to answer outstanding questions about the €82,829 loan of 2009 from his company Beach House Training and Consulting Ltd. Approached by The Irish Times, he referred questions on the matter to his press agent, Richard Moore.
“If you have any question e-mail it to Richard and I will be happy to deal with it,” he said. He then got into his car and was driven away.
However, Mr Gallagher has not responded to questions submitted to him through Mr Moore over recent days concerning the loan.
Mr Gallagher attempted to limit the damage caused by the issue and by his concession during the debate, in response to an allegation made by Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, that he may have personally collected a donation of €5,000 from Mr Morgan for Fianna Fáil.
Yesterday Mr Gallagher claimed he had been the victim of a Sinn Féin smear campaign and said he had not received any cheque from Mr Morgan.
He received support from Fianna Fáil, which issued a “clarification” on the 2008 fundraiser in which it said Mr Morgan had issued a €5,000 cheque for the party dated June 26th of that year.
This was five days before the event took place in the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Dundalk, on July 1st. The party said the donation was acknowledged by letter by its then financial controller on June 30th.
“An official Fianna Fáil receipt was included with this letter. Our bank has this morning confirmed that this cheque was lodged to our account on June 30th, 2008,” the party said.
Mr Gallagher welcomed the Fianna Fáil statement and said it had refuted Mr McGuinness’s claim during the television debate that he had visited Mr Morgan after the fundraising event to collect the cheque.
"This was a political assassination attempt by Martin McGuinness and Sinn Féin last night. The person in question Hugh Morgan is a convicted criminal and he loaded the gun while Martin McGuinness pulled the trigger. I told the truth on Frontline," he said.
Mr McGuinness then said there had been a “misunderstanding” between himself and Mr Morgan as to when the cheque was given.
“Due to a misunderstanding during the conversation (with Mr Morgan) I was under the impression the cheque was delivered after the event, but it’s only overnight I have learned the cheque was delivered four days before the event took place,” he said.
Mr Morgan later issued a statement in which he said Mr Gallagher had visited his premises on June 27th and he had made out a cheque for €5,000 to Fianna Fáil.
He said this followed a phone call from Mr Gallagher in which he had requested a donation of that amount for the party. “He advised me that this type of fundraising would replace the annual Galway Tent Fundraiser. In return for the €5,000 donation I was promised a private audience with the taoiseach and I would get a photograph taken with him.
“He told me that the taoiseach would give an up-date on the economy in the South which in his words was ‘beginning to wobble’,” Mr Morgam said.
Mr Gallagher had phoned again on June 9th to confirm his attendance, he said. “I confirmed that I would attend and was prepared to give the donation he requested.”
He also said that a week after the event, where then taoiseach Brian Cowen was the guest speaker, Mr Gallagher had called back to his business with a photograph showing Mr Morgan and Mr Cowen.
Mr Morgan admitted that “14 years ago I was convicted of tax evasion in relation to fuel smuggling in Northern Ireland”, for which he was sentenced and paid a substantial fine.
Mr Gallagher responded that Mr Morgan's statement was completely at odds" with what he had allegedly told Martin McGuinness two hours before the Frontlinedebate. "Sinn Féin and Mr Morgan have had so many versions of this fabricated story that it only serves to further compound the lie," he said.
Mr Gallagher said his concession on Frontlinethat he may have collected an envelope containing a cheque when he called to Mr Morgan's premises to deliver a photograph was made because he was thrown by the allegation when it was made during the programme.
He said Mr Morgan had originally claimed the contribution was made before the event in July 2008. On Frontline, he said, Mr McGuinness had then claimed it was made after the event. This was a new allegation that had momentarily caught him off guard.
Speaking on RTÉ's Six-One, he said: "I was shell-shocked, that this was thrown in, and that he was saying that I delivered a photograph and collected a cheque."
A Fianna Fáil spokesman was unable to say last night who had collected the cheque on behalf of the party, or if it had been posted.
There was general agreement among politicians in Leinster House that Mr Gallagher, who enjoyed a substantial 15 point lead over nearest rival Michael D Higgins in Monday's Irish Timespoll, has been damaged following the Frontlinedebate. However, several TDs pointed to the controversy occurring very late in the campaign.
Mr Higgins, who is considered the only other candidate with a realistic prospect of winning the election, said that everything depended on reputation. “The president should satisfy every concern about trust and everything about transparency,” said Mr Higgins.
Another candidate, Mary Davis, said last night that Mr Gallagher’s answers to the questions raised had not clarified anything. “Instead, even more questions now arise.”