A LABOUR SENATOR who has claimed he was offered a trip abroad to coincide with a vote on the referendum to abolish the Seanad will not be taking the matter further at this moment in time, the party has said.

Denis Landy told the Sunday Independent that he was offered a ‘plush foreign holiday’ to New York to coincide with a series of votes on the legislation to give effect to the Seanad abolition referendum.

He believed it to be an attempt to get him out of the country in order for the government’s proposal to be defeated. There has been significant opposition from politicians on all sides to the abolition of the upper house.

John Drennan wrote in yesterday’s paper that Landy refused to name the ‘political figure’ who made the offer but was clear that the offer was a serious one. Landy has not returned calls or texts from TheJournal.ie today.

A Labour spokesperson said that the senator did not tell the party about the matter before it appeared in the media yesterday but does not plan to pursue it further at this point.

“I understand that he was anxious to put it on the public record given that the abolition of the Seanad was being debated in the house last week,” the spokesperson said.

They added: “Senator Landy is not pursuing the matter any further at this point in time.”

Earlier, the Fine Gael chairman Charlie Flanagan said that the matter needed to be investigated by gardaí:

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