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LAST UPDATE | 6 Oct
TAOISEACH AND FIANNA Fáil leader Micheál Martin has said that Jim Gavin told the party that he “absolutely” did not have any issues with a tenant.
He also insisted that “comprehensive due diligence” was carried out when selecting Gavin as the party’s presidential candidate.
Gavin made the shock announcement late last night to withdraw from the presidential election, saying that recent days “have given me cause to reflect.”
His statement came hours after he failed to clarify reports on RTÉ’s The Week in Politics debate that he allegedly did not repay a tenant €3,300 in rent mistakenly paid over a decade ago.
“I made a mistake that was not in keeping with my character and the standards I set myself,” Gavin said.
He said he “thought long and hard about the potential impact of the ongoing campaign on the wellbeing of my family and friends” and that having taken all of this on board, he decided to withdraw from the presidential election contest.
Speaking to RTÉ’s Six One, Martin said he was aware that Gavin was a landlord and that Gavin was “repeatedly” asked if he ever had “any issue with a tenant”.
Martin said that Gavin replied “absolutely not” and added that similar questions were asked of Gavin prior to last week.
“There’s only so much anyone can do in situations like this,” added Martin.
“There was an issue around 2009, he clearly did not deal with it at that time or since, and probably buried it somewhere in the recesses of his mind and didn’t deal with it,” said Martin.
“The consequences of that have now come home.”
Martin said that the tenant contacted the press office on Saturday and told the press officer that they had “made numerous attempts to contact Jim Gavin back in 2009”.
“That was Saturday evening, and that was a significant change in what we do, because we weren’t aware of the tenant.”
Martin said he met with Gavin yesterday to “discuss” the incident and that he took part in yesterday’s presidential debate on RTÉ because the decision to withdraw “might not have been in his contemplation” at the time.
He added that Gavin “made the decision himself but we did discuss it with him”.
When asked about his leadership of the party, Martin said he received a “very strong mandate at the last general election” but added that there will be a “comprehensive” review.
Martin said he acknowledges that “many members of the party are hurting today” and that this is “not something I anticipated”.
He added that “comprehensive due diligence” was done on Gavin’s background.
It comes as Fianna Fáil MEP Billy Kelleher said that the party didn’t do enough due diligence and that decisions that were made “must have consequences”.
Fianna Fáil’s parliamentary party members have been reacting to the news today, with one TD telling The Journal that it was “a disaster for the party”.
Regarding the €3300 reportedly owed to a former tenant of his, @gavinforthearas tells @ainelawlor that he 'does not have all the information to date' and that he is 'looking into it' #RTETWIP repeats at 3, 6:30 and 10 on the news channel / 23:10 on @RTEOne #presidentialdebate pic.twitter.com/mVxe2gOahT
— The Week in Politics (@rtetwip) October 5, 2025
Kelleher sought the Fianna Fáil nomination last month, but lost out to Gavin in a secret ballot by 41 votes to 29.
After the vote, Martin played down the significance of Kelleher receiving 40% of the secret ballot vote. But it set tongues wagging within the party that it could be the first chink in the armour of Martin’s leadership.
The Taoiseach has faced criticism for his backing of Gavin and how Fianna Fáil’s presidential process was handled.
Martin told Six One that Fianna Fáil wanted a candidate but “no one in the parliamentary party” came forward during the summer months.
He then noted that other potential candidates, such as Bertie Ahern, made their interest known in August.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Kelleher said Gavin’s withdrawal was “deeply upsetting” and a “shell shock” to the presidential election and to the party.
He said Fianna Fáil “didn’t do our due diligence, didn’t do enough interrogation” and described the process for selecting a candidate in early August as “a chaotic scene”.
Kelleher said there was “no scrutiny of candidates” and that “names were being mentioned on an ad hoc basis”.
He added that there was no “open process” and the decision to nominate Gavin “always seemed to be preordained”.
Kelleher said there had been “multiple failures” and questioned whether the scrutiny involved in a presidential election had been explained to Gavin.
He said there cannot be a situation where “this is just swept under the carpet and we all move on”.
“It has caused an awful lot of trauma, both to individuals, in terms of Jim Gavin and his family, and more broadly, in the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party and the integrity of how we actually assess candidates.”
The MEP said Fianna Fáil will have to assess what went wrong. He wouldn’t be drawn on whether Martin’s leadership of the party had been damaged or if it would now be challenged, but he said:
“We have to accept that decisions that were made must have consequences.”
Later, on Cork’s 96FM Opinion Line, Kelleher failed to say whether he had confidence in Martin to lead the party into the next general election.
The Irish Independent reported on Saturday that Gavin and his wife rented out an apartment in Dublin’s north-inner city to a number of tenants.
A couple were living in the apartment between 2007 and 2009. When they moved out, it is alleged that due to a standing order in place, several months’ worth of rent were mistakenly paid to Gavin.
The tenant reportedly went to lengths to track down Gavin to ask that the money be repaid, but allegedly despite a promise that it would, the money was never returned.
Asked about the claims during RTÉ’s debate yesterday, Gavin neither confirmed or denied the authenticity of the story, instead saying he was “looking into it”.
He said it was a stressful time for him and his family and that they got into financial difficulty at the time. “If it happened, I’m very sorry that it happened.”
Fianna Fáil’s director of elections Jack Chambers told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that a press query was made to the party about the story on Thursday, which was answered on Friday following engagement with Gavin.
Chambers said that Gavin had “no record or recollection of the particular issue”.
However, Chambers said that on Saturday, the tenant in question contacted Fianna Fáil to say that they had records relating to the matter which was “contrary” to what the party had been told and what had been said on Friday.
The matter was then put to Gavin and “over the weekend, it was clear that there was absolutely veracity to what the tenant had said”.
“Jim then retrieved partial records, which confirmed that this was an issue, and obviously the contradiction between what was said on Friday and what emerged reflects the seriousness of this.”
Chambers said there was “extensive and robust due diligence right through the weeks prior to his candidacy”, but that the rental matter was never disclosed.
He added that the party will “obviously have to review and reflect on the wider campaign” and said it was “damaging” for Fianna Fáil, but stopped short of saying whether it was damaging to the party’s leader.
Transport Minister Darragh O’Brien has said the party will discuss the process when the parliamentary party meets on Wednesday.
“This is not a good situation. Let’s be straight about it. It’s not where we wanted to be.”
The two remaining candidates in the election – Independent Catherine Connolly and Fine Gael’s Heather Humphreys – have wished Gavin well.
“Anyone who seeks to make Ireland a better place through public service should be commended,”Connolly said.
“Jim Gavin has made the right decision for himself and his family. I wish him well.”
Humphreys said Gavin has made “an enormous contribution to our country” through his service in the Defence Forces and his time in the GAA.
“While I know this must have been a very difficult decision, it is clearly one Jim has made with the best interests of his family at heart,” she said.
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