THE TENANT AT the centre of the Jim Gavin rent payment issue contacted Fianna Fáil on Saturday but has not received any call back from either the party or the former candidate, The Journal has learned.  

A source close to the tenant, who has spoken to this news website, said that the tenant contacted Fianna Fáil directly about the issue over the weekend.

This was also confirmed this morning by the Minister for Finance and Jim Gavin campaign director Jack Chambers speaking on RTE Radio. 

It is understood that, as of this afternoon, Gavin has not contacted the tenant over the matter of the unreturned money. 

The tenant is none the wiser about whether work is under way for his €3,300 to be returned, despite the huge coverage of the story, which has led the Irish news today. 

The source said the tenant has “sympathy” for Jim Gavin and understands that “people make mistakes in their lives”. 

However, the tenant was also going through a difficult financial period himself at the time that the money was not returned to him. 

The incident happened in 2009, as the financial crisis had hit in Ireland badly. 

No contact made with tenant since 

The Fianna Fáil press office has confirmed to The Journal that the first contact the party had with the tenant was when the man rang the campaign on Saturday afternoon.

“It was the first and only time the tenant was in contact,” a spokesperson said. They said that the party did not receive any documentation from the former tenant nor has the party requested any documentation from the tenant. 

The matter was subsequently discussed with Gavin, Fianna Fáil has confirmed. 

The tenant had had registered legal letters sent to Gavin fifteen years ago by Arthur Cox, a well-known legal firm in Dublin. The Journal  has seen copies of this letter. 

No response was received by the tenant at the time the letter was sent. 

Standing order issue 

The situation occurred when the tenant had been paying the rent to the landlord, Jim Gavin, from one bank account. There was a direct debit standing order on that account.

Gavin, the landlord, had raised the rent at some point during the tenancy and rather than changing the standing order the tenant began paying the rest of the rent out of a savings account. 

When the tenant moved out of the property he cancelled the standing order on one account but not the other. This resulted in a portion of the rent being paid to Gavin for a time.

That amount ultimately rose to €3,300. 

The source said this was an error by the tenant. 

The tenant’s lawyers wrote to Gavin, by registered post, to multiple locations but it was not responded to by him or by legal counsel on his behalf. 

Gavin had called the tenant at one point and in a difficult phone conversation, the source said, the GAA manager undertook to pay back the money. That never materialised. 

The source said that the tenant and his former partner do not wish to be named publicly and said that it has “escalated bigger” than they thought it would since they were contacted initially by the Irish Independent which broke the story. 

The tenant, it is understood, had examined the possibility of going to the Small Claims Court but the amount involved was over the €1,500 limit. 

They also examined the possibility of taking a case to the Residential Tenancies Board but they opted against this as records showed Gavin was not registered with them.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio One this morning, Minister Jack Chambers explained Fianna Fáil’s engagement with the tenant and Gavin once the story emerged. 

He said: “On Thursday a press query was made to the party, and that was answered on Friday following engagement with Jim. At that time, he [Jim Gavin] said he had no record or recollection of the particular issue that was set out in the article on Saturday.

“Subsequently, on Saturday, the tenant in question contacted the party and said that they did have records relating to this particular issue, and that was contrary to what the party had been told and what had been said on Friday, and it was clear that that was emerging as a very serious issue that was put to Jim.

“And obviously there was engagement with him [Gavin]. And then over the weekend, it was clear that there was absolutely veracity to what the tenant had said, and Jim retrieved, 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.”

With reporting by Christina Finn