Ahern denies ‘dirty tricks’ campaign against FG adviser

FIANNA Fáil ministers yesterday said they knew nothing about an apparent attempt to smear a senior Fine Gael adviser.

Documentation containing allegations were sent to three media outlets earlier this month. At least some of the documentation was compiled in England and sent from a London fax number to a third party in Ireland, who then distributed it to the media.

One of the media outlets which received the material — the Irish Mail on Sunday — traced the fax number to the Southall office of Hennelly’s Utilities Ltd.

That company is owned by Sean Hennelly, a Fianna Fáil supporter and well-known figure in the London-Irish community.

Mr Hennelly denied knowledge of the documentation, telling the paper he had a personal fax machine with a different number to the office one.

“I guarantee it certainly did not come from me. That’s for sure. There’s over 30 people using that fax,” he told the paper.

In 1998, Mr Hennelly was listed as an organiser of a Friends of Fianna Fáil fundraising event in London’s five-star Grosvenor House Hotel.

But Fianna Fáil later claimed his name had been included in error on the event literature.

Speaking at a Fianna Fáil press conference in Dublin yesterday, both Social Affairs Minister Seamus Brennan and Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern said they were unaware of the story.

And Mr Ahern quickly swung the issue around to the smear campaign Fianna Fáil believes has been orchestrated against Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

“I don’t know anything about it (the story), but, you know, we weren’t the party that met journalists and met people involved in the tribunal to get some details on the party leader,” he said.

“So we’ve nothing to hide in relation to this and we haven’t delved into any dirty tricks against any party.”