4 days Ago
PUBLIC EXPENDITURE MINISTER and general election candidate Paschal Donohoe has defended the selection of Louth candidate John McGahon to run for the party, saying he will not “second guess” the outcome of a criminal trial. Donohoe is the latest high-profile Fine Gael figure to back McGahon, after images emerged yesterday of the injuries sustained by a man he was involved in an altercation with in 2018. McGahon was involved in an altercation with farmer Breen White outside the Rum House pub in Dundalk in 2018.
Though he was acquitted in a 2022 criminal trial of assault causing harm, McGahon was €39,000 after the Castleblaney farmer sued the senator for assault and battery. , the jury found White had been assaulted and awarded €60,000, including €10,000 for aggravated damages. It apportioned blame at 65% against McGahon and the other 35% against the farmer.
Both Taoiseach Simon Harris and Justice Minister Helen McEntee backed McGahon yesterday, saying the party would continue to canvas for him. This was after Breen White about the incident, and shared pictures of the injuries he sustained in 2018. Harris previously described what happened as “a scuffle” and said McGahon was remorseful.
, Paschal Donohoe defended McGahon’s selection and said “it is still not for me to second guess the outcome from a criminal trial.” “I have to have recourse to what has been the process here, that there was a criminal trial in relation to this,” he said. “John McGahon was not found guilty in that criminal trial.
I have to then look at the engagement that I’ve had with him, where, in the aftermath of that criminal trial, I found somebody that works very hard, and been a politician who’s put his name in front of the people of Louth.” Donohoe said that McGahon had paid “a significant fine” in relation to the incident. “I think any act of violence, any incident like this, I obviously find extremely regrettable.
.. and it’s one, of course, I have to acknowledge,” Donohoe said.
His comments came after Fianna Fáil and Tánaiste Micheál Martin said that he thought “there was a problem” with Fine Gael supporting McGahon. “I think there’s a problem there. If I’m honest, I think the nature of the attack was quite.
.. seems to me, anyway, to have been very aggressive, to say the least,” Martin also told Newstalk.
“The injuries are shocking. And I think people can see, unfortunately online, the nature of the attack, and whether he has learned since then and fully apologised. “But I think there are issues there, if I’m honest.
John McGahon may have explanations for it, but this clearly wasn’t a scuffle.” John McGahon has ran in a number of elections for Fine Gael, and is a former councillor. He ran unsuccessfully in the 2020 general election, but was elected to the Cultural and Educational Panel of the Seanad in 2020.
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