Anyone remember when Declan Ganley called for a recount during the recent Euro elections? And it was discovered that somehow 3000 votes for someone else had found their way into his pile? Well, the lad (Fiachra Ó Luain) has been trying to get some answers ever since then and has come up against a brick wall.
WHEELIEBINGATE
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An angry young Irish politician is outraged over the lack of progress in the investigation into the incident known as 'Wheeliebingate' - where 3,000 of his votes in last June’s European Elections were incorrectly attributed to another in the Ireland North West constituency.
Not a big deal, you say?
Consider these facts;
The Irish Divorce Referendum of 1995 the deciding margin was 9, 114 votes.
If the Republic of Ireland is the only country to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, that will utterly change the nature of the European Union for all of its 500 million inhabitants.
Now Irish voters are being warned to be concerned whether their votes during the upcoming Lisbon Treaty Referendum will be allocated correctly.
28 year old resident of Carndonagh, Co. Donegal, Fiachra Ó Luain has this week written to the Republic of Ireland’s Top Cop, Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy, complaining that the police officer put in charge of the investigation, was the same Garda who was in charge of the European election count when the votes originally went missing. Ó Luain has complained that so far, the Garda in question has been professionally inert in his attempts to gather further statements and investigate the matter. The Returning Officer who was in charge of the count has refused to give a statement or provide a list of the names of all individuals who had contact with the votes. Meanwhile the investigating Garda told Fiachra Ó Luain that he would not interview the members of the ‘red team’ who discovered the Ó Luain ballots in the bundles of multi-millionaire candidate Declan Ganley, unless Ó Luain could come up with their names. However seeing as the investigating Garda was also the Garda in charge of the election count he should already have access to the name of all persons involved in the count!
Ó Luain was written to the Garda Commissioner and the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government saying that the whole thing now reeks of a cover-up. Ó Luain, and his Election Agent, UN and EU credentialled election monitor Dr. Edward Horgan are now convinced there was political interference in the process, and the investigation. “Just because it was millionaire Declan Ganley who called for the recheck that ultimately brought the misallocated votes in the Ganley bundles to the media’s attention, does not mean it was all an innocent mistake. If extra ballots had already been bought, then indeed it gives rise to possibility that further negotiation could have occurred during the overnight pause in the count. We are very lucky that the ‘red team’ brought the misallocated bundles to the attention of the media, at which stage Declan Ganley is said to have asked for the recheck to be cancelled! That is why the 'Red Team' should be so central to the investigation, however the Garda investigation has completely ignored them.”
Ó Luain is concerned that if up-to 3000 votes can be misallocated from the candidate with the least financial resources to the candidate with the most financial resources, and if the same people in charge of the European election count are again in charge of the referendum count, then it is conceivable that the result of the upcoming referendum could go to the highest bidder! When Ó Luain asked the Garda in charge of the investigation what guarantee there was that thousands of votes would not be misallocated in the upcoming referendum count, the Garda told him that there was no guarantee at all.
The Donegal based ex-Euro candidate says: “In this final fortnight before the second Lisbon Treaty Referendum, that is bound to be decided by a close margin, voters need to be reassured that all of their votes will be counted and allocated correctly. As the candidate involved, I am concerned that this may have resulted from deliberate electoral fraud rather than from an inadvertent mistake. It is highly unusual, and completely unacceptable that 3,000 First Preference votes can be misallocated.”
In the three months since the European election Mr. Ó Luain made repeated requests for a prompt and thorough investigation by the Returning Officer for the North West Constituency Kieran McDermott, the Gardaí and the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government and so far has not received any satisfactory response.
Mr. Ó Luain's position? Angry. Declaring: “The lack of any thorough and transparent investigation, three months down the road leaves a question mark over the accountability of our count process. How can we go to the polls again on October 2nd when the people who may have deliberately misallocated 3000 votes may also be in contact with the referendum ballots? The Garda Siochána have said themselves that there is no guarantee of anything. Needless to say this issue is not only relevant to Irish voters but also to the 500,000,000 citizens of 27 EU member states whose relationship with the EU will change irreversibly depending on the result of our referendum on Lisbon.”
Katrina Gill
[email protected].u
