LAST UPDATE | 10 Oct

JIM GAVIN HAS paid back the €3,300 he owed to a former tenant of the apartment he owned, The Journal has confirmed. 

The tenant, Niall Donald, who is a journalist with the Sunday World, received the money this afternoon. 

Donald told The Journal earlier this week that he had not heard from Gavin after contacting Fianna Fáil about the rent issue last Saturday. 

The issue of Gavin owing Donald money led to the former Dublin football manager withdrawing from the race for the Áras.

Speaking on the Crime World podcast earlier this week, Donald said he rented the apartment in Smithfield from 2007 to 2009 and cancelled one of the rental standing orders when he moved out, but did not cancel a second one. After contacting Gavin, he said, “as far as I remember, he certainly said ‘I’ll look into it or whatever’”.

“Obviously, you wait and you expect him to get back to you, and it didn’t happen. I phoned him a couple of times, he didn’t get back. Sent him emails, sent him texts,” he said, adding he was “totally” confident that he would get the money back initially. 

Donald said he tried contacting Gavin for weeks but received no answer. He also emailed the Defence Forces. Three months passed when he went to speak to a solicitor and approached the Private Residential Tenancies Board (PRTB), when he discussed Gavin wasn’t registered with them.

The issue arose when Donald was paying the full rent out of two bank accounts – when he left the apartment he cancelled a standing order for one of the accounts but did not do the same for the second bank account.

He brought it to the attention of Gavin who, despite legal letters, did not pay back the money to the former Tenant. 

Gavin withdrew from the presidential election late on Sunday night, a day after it was reported by the Irish Independent that he failed to pay a debt of more than €3,000 to a former tenant.

Gavin had visibly struggled in the face of tough questioning on the story on a presidential debate on RTÉ’s The Week in Politics that afternoon.

The withdrawal of Gavin from the race has caused significant disquiet in the Fianna Fáil party with Taoiseach Micheál Martin making an apology to party members.