Taoiseach walks back his earlier description of McGahon assault as a 'scuffle'
Senator John McGahon leaving the Four Courts in June this year. Picture: Collins Courts
Taoiseach Simon Harris has walked back his previous description of an altercation involving John McGahon as a “scuffle”, saying that he had not seen the video at the time.
Pressure has grown on the Fine Gael senator over the last two days, but Mr Harris has continued to back the Louth candidate amid questions from other political leaders.
Mr McGahon was acquitted in 2022 of assaulting Breen White outside a Dundalk nightclub in 2018, but the Fine Gael senator was found to be 65% civilly liable by a High Court jury.
Over the weekend, photos of Mr White’s injuries were published, hiking pressure on Fine Gael.
Footage circulating on social media shows Mr McGahon on top of Mr White, striking him a number of times as two men intervene to stop the Fine Gael senator.
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Other political leaders, including Tánaiste Micheál Martin and Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty, have called for both Mr Harris and Mr McGahon to further address the controversy.
Both have already set out that Mr McGahon would not have been selected as a candidate for their respective parties, with the Fianna Fáil leader describing the incident as “shocking”.
Mr Harris said that he has seen the video of the incident online, but that he does not believe it is all of the footage as seen by the jury.
“A jury looked at all of the footage, a judge looked at all of the footage, and a jury acquitted John McGahon and that has to be the standard that we hold in terms of our criminal justice system,” Mr Harris said.
“But he was acquitted and he did put forward a self-defence defence in the court that was accepted by the jury.”
However, ahead of the RTÉ leaders debate last night, Mr Harris confirmed he had not seen the video when in July he described the incident as a scuffle.
“In fairness, had I seen the video, I don’t think I would have used that word at all,” Mr Harris said.
Mr Harris rejected assertions that the incident would undercut Fine Gael’s message of being tough on crime.
Speaking in Ranelagh, Mr Martin stopped short of criticising Mr Harris’s judgement around Mr McGahon, but said he was “surprised” at how Mr Harris had “doubled down” on his support for the senator.
Mr Martin said he was “shocked” when he saw the video of the incident, saying that footage of Mr McGahon appearing to strike Mr White in the head was “very serious”.
"Fortunately here the consequences were not as negative or as bad as they could be striking on the head. The injuries were very severe.”
Mr Martin added that Mr White feels as if he has not been listened to.
The Sinn Féin deputy leader, Mr Doherty, said it was “surprising” that Fine Gael appeared not to take any disciplinary action against Mr McGahon.
Mr Doherty said he did not believe Mr Harris could run from the issue and “pretend that this is something that you can just brush under the carpet”.
Mr Doherty said the violence of Mr McGahon’s case set it apart from other cases, such as his own conviction for a public order offence in 1999, which was dismissed under the Probation Act.
“He had to be dragged off somebody, the person required hospitalisation, this is a serious issue. There’s a serious victim here,” Mr Doherty said.
The attempted to contact Mr McGahon, but he did not answer calls nor did he answer questions put to him by text.
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