Social Democrat TD apologises for misleading the public

And I don't actually believe him. Typed and then written the same way wrong three times. Would love for DCC to confirm the date of receipt of the document…

Additionally, the "before I entered politics" claim is still a blatant lie no matter which dates are used. You enter politics when selected as a candidate.

He lied about that, and the only reason was embarrassment as holding the shares was not illegal,

It seems,the shares if he held them today a few weeks later would be worth more than double (€500k) according to it says in the papers this morning

Little wonder he wanted to hide them

That’s champagne socialists for ya

I'm no expert in share trading but if I decide to sell shares today does the transaction go through today or is there a lead time? Might be a bit of straw clutching but could he have initiated the sale of his shares before the LE and then the sale closed a few days/weeks/months after

Given his views on the Israel/Palestine situation I doubt he intentionally wanted to contribute to the Israeli side and it's a bit strange he would lie about the events.

One way out for him now is to donate the money he earned from the sale to a Palestinian charity, or one that is going somewhat to providing aid to the area

if they’re publicly listed ordinary shares he could have set a price below which they wouldn’t sell and on or above they would sell

Or best price of the day

The latter would probably sell instantly especially if what I heard on it says on the papers on MI this morning is correct and that they more than doubled in value since he sold them

Well in that case they'll be calling for McDonald's, Starbucks and every business related to Israel, UK, USA, China and Russia etc to leave Ireland. They'll be calling on all their employees to voluntarily leave etc.

Thankfully the vast majority of Irish people don't give a crap about any of this.

The Israeli Intel plant is about 10 miles from Hebron in Judea, you can be certain that people live there and work in it. Are the soc dems going to ask them to leave.

I've Yet to meet a soc dem that wasn't working in academia or a multi national it's a party for people isolated from their political beliefs and the effects on the rest of society

I reckon he panicked and then got stuck in the lie.

Virgin Media say that they have seen other materials which support his assertion that it was a typo.

This is quite a bizarre case.

On the one hand, if a politician lies, they should pay a consequence. On the other hand, it seems that the typo explanation may be true. He submitted a form on 26 July, dated 26 June, saying that he had gotten rid of the shares. If the date is 26 July, that is true, if it is 26 June, it is not. In a criminal court, that would be sufficient to introduce reasonable doubt and likely find him innocent. Added to that, those forms are notoriously complex and difficult to understand. When is an investment an investment? If you have €500 in prize bonds, do you need to declare them?

On the completely other hand, what does it matter that he had shares in a company that he worked for, but that later, after he left them, sold to the Israelis? Absolutely nothing to me. I am certain that there are other politicians out there with pension funds from private employment who have invested in similar companies, possibly even Social Democrat politicians. Politicians don't take a vow of poverty when they enter politics. Is it a bit hypocritical of him? Possibly, but, he was not doing anything illegal.

Imagine a politician calling for pubs to close earlier at 11:00 for public health reasons (holding shares in companies that supply Israel to be illegal), and that politician being pictured in a pub at 12:00 on a Friday night (holding shares in companies that supply Israel). Should they be sanctioned for that? Not in my mind. I would favour a tax on airline flights in the interests of combatting climate change, but it is not going to stop me flying abroad.

I find this a really strange incident to have evoked such outrage as well. Little over a year ago, nobody in the country had much of an issue with Israel or maybe not much interest in them. I wouldn't be any sort of fan of the Soc Dems but this lad had shares in a software infrastructure company a decade ago due to his employment with them. I've worked in multinationals over the years and seen the absolute chaos employees get into trying to sell shares they have received from the company. Multinationals in Ireland with close ties to Israel i might add.

I've been monitoring Palantir for the last few months for investment, so it peaked my interest when I saw it in the Irish media. The poor TD has lost out on the double with the share price increase recently. Whether he sold them in June, July or whenever, I couldn't care less. I would much rather a TD with solid investments in stocks, ETFs, pension planning portfolios etc. than much of the current crop, who rack up numerous rental properties whose ownership have a direct detrimental effect on the people they claim to represent.

The issue isn't really to do with who he had investments in. It's how he handled the communicating of this.

It was a shambolic mess of a presser from first off. Gannon was like a rabbit caught in the headlights and Hayes unintentionally? looked like he was trying to hide behind them all.

There was no invitation in the ROG tweets. He's not the one telling lies here.

And Harris didn't sign the NCH contract. Ministers don't generally sign contracts.

the date of submission is at the top of the combined declarations document https://www.dublincity.ie/sites/default/files/2024-08/combined-ethics-declarations-newly-elected-councillors-compressed_0.pdf