Gallagher failed to prepare for debate

Did a single bogus tweet cost Seán Gallagher the presidency?

Perhaps. But it might more accurately be said that Mr Gallagher’s own answers were primarily the cause of his downfall.

The Broadcasting Authority yesterday issued its ruling on a complaint made by Mr Gallagher about two RTÉ shows broadcast in the last days of the presidential campaign.

The first was The Frontline hosted by Pat Kenny on Oct 24. The second was Today with Pat Kenny the following morning.

The Frontline held the campaign’s final debate, and saw Mr Gallagher walk into what appeared to be a carefully laid Sinn Féin trap.

SF candidate Martin McGuinness revealed that, prior to going on air, he had spoken to a businessman about a 2008 Fianna Fáil fundraiser to which Mr Gallagher had been linked.

Mr McGuinness said the businessman claimed that Mr Gallagher had called to his home to collect a donation on behalf of FF after the fundraiser.

Mr Gallagher repeatedly denied the accusation at first, before conceding he may have delivered a photograph to the businessman’s home. It was potentially damaging, but not yet fatal. The debate moved on to other issues, and then took a break.

When it returned, Pat Kenny said there had been a “development”, a tweet from Mr McGuinness’s account saying SF were going to produce the businessman the following day. Mr Kenny asked Mr Gallagher if he wished to clarify anything. And from that moment on, his campaign imploded.

At first, Mr Gallagher tried to cast doubt over the businessman’s story, saying he was “a convicted criminal” and had rented office space to SF during the general election. He said he had “no recollection” of getting a cheque.

But challenged further, Mr Gallagher conceded to jeers from the audience that he may have been given “an envelope”. Finally, he said: “If he gave me the cheque, it was made out to FF headquarters and it was delivered, and that was that. It had nothing to do with me.”

Game over, and everybody in Mr Gallagher’s campaign knew it. Just 24 hours previously he had a seemingly unassailable lead in the polls, but his support was about to plummet. The next morning, he went on Mr Kenny’s radio show, and didn’t fare a whole lot better. His race was run.

The complaints hinged on the fact that the tweet mentioned by Mr Kenny had not been from an official SF account. As such, it was a bogus tweet and, Mr Gallagher argued, grossly unfair to him.

The authority upheld Mr Gallagher’s complaint. It said that there were “no apparent efforts made” by RTÉ to verify the tweet. It also found that, despite information becoming available during the rest of the programme that the tweet was not from an official SF account, RTÉ had failed to clarify this.

However, the authority made clear that these were mistakes and not malice. It said it was “satisfied that there is no evidence, contrary to the views of the complainant, that the broadcaster, presenter or production team deliberately concealed information… or constructed the programme in a manner that lacked objectivity or impartiality”.

Mr Gallagher has welcomed the fact that his complaint was upheld and says it confirms his view that there was an “institutional failure” by RTÉ.

It is hard to disagree, because RTÉ should have sought to verify the tweet before broadcasting it. The tweet started the chain of events leading to Mr Gallagher’s downfall. There is no question but that RTÉ has a case to answer. The broadcaster apologised and said it would “reinforce protocols” for staff.

But the blame does not rest solely with RTÉ: It was Mr Gallagher’s own answers that did for him. Neither Pat Kenny nor his production team put the words in his mouth.

The remarkable thing is that Mr Gallagher wasn’t better prepared. He was able to say the businessmen was a convicted criminal because a newspaper had put questions to his campaign about the man in question, convicted fuel smuggler Hugh Morgan, the previous weekend. Knowing he was appearing on a crucial TV debate, one might have thought Mr Gallagher would have had his story straight on what did — or didn’t happen — in 2008.

He was ill-prepared. And while the tweet knocked him off balance, it was ultimately Mr Gallagher’s own failure to prepare for the questions that saw his campaign collapse.