CAR INCIDENT:GARDAÍ SAY they are investigating an allegation of criminal damage to the campaign car of independent presidential candidate Dana Rosemary Scallon after it suffered a motorway blowout.
Ms Scallon said yesterday she was lucky to be alive after a tyre blew out on the car as she was travelling close to the M4 toll near Kilcock, Co Kildare, on Tuesday night. Her husband Damien, who was driving her to Dublin, briefly lost control of the car, which was travelling at about 100km/h when it suffered the blowout.
Her campaign team claimed the tyre appeared to have been punctured up to 15 times and have made statements to gardaí.
“When I looked at it, it was very scary to look at,” Ms Scallon said. “I think we are all very lucky to be here today. I never start a journey without saying a little prayer and I think we are all very lucky. As far as I’m concerned it was a very lucky escape.”
Ms Scallon said she wasn’t trying to advance any allegation that her car had been tampered with or vandalised but added that the AA team who were called said they had never seen “anything like it in their working lives”.
“We were told it was so badly damaged they couldn’t give a definitive answer and so we’ve asked local gardaí to look into it.”
The incident happened at about 9pm on Tuesday. The car, a Peugeot 508 emblazoned with Dana posters, had been parked outside the Landmark Hotel in Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim, for several hours earlier in the day.
There were four people in the car, including a cousin of Ms Scallon’s and her brother Gerald Brown.
Mr Brown and Mr Scallon had swapped driving duties at a service station shortly after the toll plaza and neither reported noticing the car handling unusually.
Mr Scallon said when the left rear tyre blew he first swerved to avoid a lorry in front and a car behind before struggling to regain control and stop safely on the hard shoulder. Weather conditions were bad at the time and the road was busy.
“It was quite a terrifying, horrifying moment,” he said. “When you see the tyre it kind of sends home to us what were they trying to do – injure us or murder us? Along with doing that, they could have killed someone else.”
Ms Scallon had been campaigning in the west after the TG4 candidates’ debate, with her last engagements in Carrick-on-Shannon.
“We had no idea until today [Wednesday] it was as serious as it is,” Mr Scallon said. “The AA man really examined the tyre and said he had never seen anything like it. He said, ‘I’m not an expert but it looks like it has been interfered with. There’s no explanation for it.’”