Gallagher to lodge complaint over ‘fake tweet’

SEAN GALLAGHER’S campaign team will lodge an official complaint “this week” with both the RTÉ Authority and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland over the “fake tweet” which infamously prompted a collapse in his support base in the last week of the presidential election.

The tweet was made during a break in the final presidential debate on RTE’s The Frontline programme. Martin McGuinness had already made allegations that Mr Gallagher had been involved in the organising of a Fianna Fáil event and had collected a cheque for €5,000 on behalf of the party.

The tweet was then made by a person not connected with Sinn Féin, but who appeared to be part of the official campaign to elect Martin McGuinness, claiming that the man who had paid the €5,000 would hold a press conference the following day. Presenter Pat Kenny then put this to the candidates.

Mr Gallagher’s press officer, Richard Moore, said the tweet had “spooked” the independent candidate, who at that point had built up a commanding lead in the polls only to lose to Michael D Higgins.

Mr Moore said yesterday that the complaint about the RTÉ use of the fake tweet would also be augmented by a complaint about equal time not being given to all candidates on the broadcast.

It was reported yesterday that Mr Moore claimed other candidates were “virtually ignored” due to the focus on Sean Gallagher and yesterday he said that while he would have to time the number of minutes allocated to Mr Gallagher on the Frontline debate, it was “fairly obvious” that the focus had been more on Mr Gallagher than the other candidates. He said: “Every candidate must get equal treatment.”

He said Mr Gallagher has more than 42,000 followers on Facebook and, while he was unaware of his supporters making official complaints to RTÉ, he had received emails from people that were copied to RTÉ and requests from people asking how to lodge complaints.

RTÉ has defended the broadcast and the use of the tweet and that it had put it to the candidates on the night of the debate.

But Mr Moore said that the programme highlighted the fact that “RTE do not have a protocol” on the use of tweets, in comparison to the BBC, where he said there was a “very strict” requirement that all tweets be sourced and verified.