What is Palantir? The US tech firm involved in the Social Democrats' political dilemma

Palantir was co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, the massively rich founder of payments behemoth Paypal who is seen as a sort of quiet version of Elon Musk

Eoin Hayes' biggest issue of all is a political one — in that the shares he sold for €199,000 were those of a company involved in deals with the Israeli Defence Forces which are less than compatible with the publicly stated ideals of both the Social Democrats and Mr Hayes himself. Picture: Stephen Collins/Collins Photos

The newly elected and then suspended Social Democrats TD Eoin Hayes has two problems.

Firstly, he misled the media in saying he had divested his shares in his former employer, American tech concern Palantir, prior to entering political life, when he absolutely had not.