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FIANNA FÁIL REPRESENTATIVES were put under “extensive pressure” to back Jim Gavin by Micheál Martin and Jack Chambers, a party TD has said.
Cork East TD James O’Connor said Gavin, who dropped out of the race in dramatic fashion late on Sunday night, “should have never found himself on the ballot paper”, while he also accused party leaders of “throwing him under the bus” this week.
Gavin declared his withdrawal after it emerged he allegedly failed to pay a debt of more than €3,000 to a former tenant.
The fallout from Gavin’s decision has roiled the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party, with members privately expressing shock, frustration and anger this week.
In a statement posted on social media today, O’Connor said the party must “resolutely address our mistakes and political misjudgments” from the campaign, as he questioned the judgement of Fianna Fáil’s leader Martin and deputy leader Chambers, who was also the director of Gavin’s election campaign.
— James O'Connor TD (@JamesOConnorTD) October 7, 2025
“I, along with many colleagues, believed nominating was a serious risk,” O’Connor said, citing the former GAA manager’s “glaring lack of any campaigning or political experience”.
Gavin was nominated in early September when he defeated Fianna Fáil MEP Billy Kelleher in a parliamentary party vote.
O’Connor said today that the Fianna Fáil leadership “should have taken the concerns of a huge mass of the Fianna Fáil party seriously”.
“It made a serious miscalculation in not doing so,” he said.
O’Connor also said he regretted the treatment Gavin has been subjected to in the last two days.
“Elevating him one day and then throwing him under the bus the next,” O’Connor said, “has to be the most unceremonious dumping on a party candidate in modern Irish political history”.
He also said that during the fallout from Gavin’s withdrawal, it was clear that the party’s candidate had been “very poorly advised on how to handle this matter”.
O’Connor said a full explanation was needed about how the situation arose, and that the party must “ensure it is never repeated”.
Chambers came under further pressure when doing interviews for today’s Budget announcement.
Appearing on RTÉ Radio One’s Drivetime, he was asked by host Cormac Ó hEadhra why he did not correct the record after realising that there were “clear” contradictions to Gavin’s account of his dealings with his former tenant.
Chambers repeated that the tenant contacted the party with evidence that “contradicted” Gavin’s account of the situation, adding that the presidential candidate had previously been consistent in his account that he never had an issue with a tenant.
Ó hEadhra next asked Chambers why, if knew the tenant allegation was true on Saturday, then why did he not correct the record publicly after an initial denial to the Irish Independent.
Following attempts to get the host to explain his question, Chambers said that it “was a matters of hours between Saturday and Sunday” and that Gavin had decided to do The Week in Politics debate on the Sunday afternoon.
“We’ve reflected the seriousness of this and he correctly stood back from the campaign on Sunday,” Chambers said.
With reporting by Eoghan Dalton
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