Gavin unable to say if he owes tenant thousands of euro

Fianna Fail presidential candidate Jim Gavin says he does not know if he owes a former tenant thousands of euro and acknowledged he had not registered the property.

Mr Gavin said he is looking into reports he owes a former tenant 3,000 euro, adding he did not have “all the information” about the matter.

It relates to a dispute with a former tenant, initially reported in the Irish Independent, around the time his own family came into financial difficulty and lost the apartment.

Speaking during RTE’s The Week in Politics presidential debate, Mr Gavin said: “That matter was over 16 years ago. It was a very stressful time for myself and my family and Jennifer.

“Like a lot of families and couples, we came into financial difficulty at that time.”

Mr Gavin said: “If it happened, I’m very sorry that it happened. I’m looking into it and I will deal with it with urgency.”

Asked if he accepted he was in breach of rental law by not registering the property with the Residential Tenancies Board, Mr Gavin told reporters after the debate: “Yeah, I didn’t register it.”

He said it was new legislation and “like a majority of people we didn’t register the property at the time”.

Pressed on how many tenants he had at the time and when he surrendered the property to the banks, he said: “It happened a number of years ago, 16 years ago, I’m still gathering the data on it.

“It’s a part of my life that I’ve left behind, so I still need to do a lot of research and when I have that information I’ll come back to you.”

He said he did not remember the “exact” number of tenants he had.

“We all have struggles in life. This is a public one for me that I’m sharing with people. And as I said, once you get all the information, I will deal with it comprehensively.”