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DUBLIN CENTRAL BYELECTION candidate Daniel Ennis has issued a legal letter to Nick Delehanty, a previous local election candidate who also sought to contest last year’s presidential election, over posts shared on his social media account.
Lawyers for the Social Democrats candidate said the posts were “malicious and grossly defamatory” and sought to damage his reputation “through baseless innuendo of wrongdoing”.
The posts, which are still online, seek to link Ennis to a person who Delehanty claimed is the director of a number of companies that provide accommodation for international protection applicants.
That person, as well as a company they are a director of, is named as a ‘presenter’ on a registration document for a company - known as a Form A1 – where Ennis was company secretary from June 2021 to November 2023.
Ennis’s lawyers said in the legal letter that the person named as a presenter is the director of a company which assists new companies in filing paperwork with the Companies Registration Office (CRO).
“A presenter named in the CRO merely identifies the person/entity which made the application for registration and does not connote that the said presenter is part of the business being registered.”
The lawyers said the post is an attempt to create an impression of a business relationship between Ennis and the person named as a presenter.
When filing a Form A1, a ‘presenter’ is responsible for lodging the documents with the CRO. This can be a person or a company.
Online company listings show the person mentioned in Delehanty’s posts is the director or secretary of 44 companies, including Beacon Company Secretaries Limited.
That company’s website states that it is an “independent and dedicated firm of company secretaries providing a full range of corporate compliance, technical and advisory services to clients based in Ireland, the UK, Europe, the US and Asia”.
It lists incorporating a company with the CRO as one of the services it provides. The company’s director was contacted for comment.
Ennis’s lawyers went on to say that Delehanty’s post sought to give the impression that Ennis was associated with companies earning tens of millions of euro “which is at complete variance with his public statements about his background and personal circumstances”.
Another post, the lawyers said, suggested that Delehanty had discovered information about Ennis linking him to wrongdoing and self-enrichment.
“The clear innuendo is that our client has been in some way unethical, engaged in improper conduct or abused public trust. This is a baseless slur and is false and untrue and clearly defamatory.”
The letter went on to say that the posts were “clearly designed to cause maximum reputational damage” in the lead up to the Dublin Central byelection. It said Ennis and his family have suffered “deep distress, anxiety and loss, damage and expense”.
Ennis had asked that Delehanty remove the posts by noon today.
He also asked for a “full and unequivocal apology” to be pinned to the top of Delehanty’s X account for a week, for him not make any further defamatory statements and to provide written undertakings that the allegations will not be repeated.
In a statement, Delehanty said he was taking legal advice and would not be commenting in detail at this stage.
“My posts concerned matters of clear public interest, including public records, company filings, public money, corporate ownership structures, and scrutiny of an election candidate seeking public office,” he said.
“I reject entirely any suggestion that I acted maliciously or knowingly published false information.”
He added: “For the avoidance of doubt, I did not allege that Mr Ennis committed any criminal offence, acted corruptly, personally profited from IPAS contracts, or was involved in the illegal cigarette matter.”
The Dublin Central and Galway West byelections will take place on Friday, 22 May.
One of Delehanty’s tweets also suggested that Ennis was at fault for not disclosing his position as company secretary when he was elected as a Dublin city councillor in 2024.
In the legal letter, Ennis’s lawyers said this was a “falsehood” because he was not required to disclose it.
A spokesperson for the Social Democrats previously told The Journal that Ennis’s employment with the company was not listed on his disclosures “because the position of company secretary was an unpaid role and he had left paid employment with the company more than 12 months before the disclosures were signed.”
The full list of candidates who have declared in the Dublin Central byelection is as follows:
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