‘No talks’ over John Perry’s electoral strength

Fine Gael TD John Perry has said he never had any discussion with party strategists in which fears were expressed about his electoral strength following recent controversies about him.

He also disputed claims a sister of one of the winning candidates for the Sligo-Leitrim constituency had only been putting ballot papers into a box at the request of two elderly members who had asked her to do so.

Mr Perry also claimed Fine Gael general secretary Tom Curran had bullied and traumatised his 15-year-old son Jude by wrongly accusing the boy of canvassing in the voting area at the Drumshambo convention on October 16.

The TD was under cross-examination on the second day of his High Court action against the trustees of Fine Gael seeking the result of the October 16 convention, at which he failed to be selected, be set aside because it was fundamentally flawed, unlawful, and involved serious irregularities.

It was put to him by Seamus Woulfe, counsel for Fine Gael, that an expert for the party would give evidence that as part of the party’s electoral strategy, his electoral strength may have been affected by controversies. These included his claims for mileage expenses, and the hiring of his wife as a parliamentary assistant.

He denied there was any controversy and said he employed his wife for 10 weeks after he had resigned as a junior minister, and she had also worked voluntarily for him for six months. He said there are people in the current government employing their spouses as secretaries.

“I would not call that controversy, it may be in your mind but not in mine.”

Mr Perry’s counsel Micheál O’Higgins objected to the line of questioning, saying it was a “back door attempt to have a cut at my client”.

However, when Mr Justice Paul Gilligan said if Mr Perry was to agree there was some controversy, the cross examination could move on without going into further detail.

Mr Perry then agreed there was some controversy leading up to the party’s strategy committee on how to fight the next election.

Earlier, he said he met with with Mr Curran and Brian Hayes TD last January to discuss the issue of strategy in the constituency.

He was asked was he retiring and said “absolutely not”, and he offered the view there should be three candidates in Sligo-Leitrim, the two sitting Sligo-based TDs and a third candidate from Leitrim.

He denied he suggested there should only be two candidates as it was “not my style of politics” to effectively agree to a sitting colleague being deselected.

Mr Perry agreed he received correspondence in advance including a request there be no canvassing in advance. He did not agree the convention mainly operated on the basis of assistance of outside volunteers as FG was a party that gets €5m a year in public funding to operate.

He agreed he was permitted to have a representative to oversee the voting tables but he had not nominated one on the night, and said that anyway there was such a crowd there nobody would be able to see what was going on. There were seven disputed votes at issue and Mr Perry lost by 10, the court has heard.

The case continues.