McGuinness: RTE could have verified tweet with us on the night

The Sinn Féin presidential candidate, Martin McGuinness, has claimed that RTE could have checked on the night of the presidential debate on 'Frontline' whether a disputed tweet read out on the programme was genuine.

It comes amid calls for RTE to provide more information on its handling of the presidential debate.

Former presidential candidate Sean Gallagher is taking legal advice after an audience member alleged that his question was changed by a researcher.

Mr Gallagher has already had a complaint upheld by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland relating to a bogus tweet read out on the same programme.

Mr McGuinness, said that while RTE should not have broadcast the tweet from the unofficial account, he maintained Mr Gallagher still had legitimate questions to answer on the night.

“The tweet had nothing to do with the Martin McGuinness presidential campaign and RTE could have checked this with any of a number of representatives of my campaign team who were present in RTE on the night,” said Mr McGuinness.

“They didn’t do this.

“It is also clear that RTE was negligent in failing to broadcast a corrective tweet from the official campaign twitter account which made it clear that the Martin McGuinness campaign had made no statement on the night in relation to the Sean Gallagher and Fianna Fáil donations issue.

“None of this however takes way from the fact that Sean Gallagher had legitimate questions to answer in relation to the issue of his involvement in Fianna Fáil and fundraising for that party, questions which he had refused to fully answer in the presidential election campaign up to that point.”