Lawyers for MEPs Clare Daly and Mick Wallace sent a legal letter to Fine Gael challenging a press release that called on the two to answer questions about their relationship with a Latvian politician accused of assisting Russian intelligence, The Irish Times understands.
Senator Regina Doherty, who is seeking to be nominated by her party to run in the Dublin constituency in European Parliament elections in June, issued a statement last week saying that Ms Daly and Mr Wallace had “urgent questions to answer”.
It called on them to make a “detailed and thorough statement outlining the nature of their relationship” with the accused Latvian MEP, Tatjana Zdanoka.
In response, Fine Gael trustees received a letter from solicitors on behalf of the two MEPs asking the party to retract the statement and apologise, suggesting they might be entitled to damages. The statement remains online at the time of publication and is not expected to be taken down.
Ms Doherty, Ms Daly, Mr Wallace and Fine Gael did not respond to requests for comment.
It comes after an investigation by a Russian independent media outlet together with Swedish, Estonian and Latvian outlets accused Ms Zdanoka of working with Russian intelligence since at least 2005. She has denied the allegations.
In the wake of the report, the European Parliament opened an investigation and passed a resolution expressing “complete outrage and grave concern about the continuous efforts by Russia to undermine European democracy”.
The resolution mentioned Ms Zdanoka’s activities with other MEPs, including in support of Algirdas Paleckis, a Lithuanian former diplomat and politician who was convicted of spying for Russia.
During a parliamentary debate, Fianna Fáil MEP Barry Andrews mentioned that Ms Daly and Mr Wallace had travelled to Lithuania to take part in events about Mr Paleckis’ case with Ms Zdanoka.
He said that the allegations against Ms Zdanoka “came as no surprise to anyone in this hemicycle” and asked Ms Daly and Mr Wallace: “why is it not legitimate to ask: did you have your suspicions? Or are you so naive that you didn’t have any suspicions at all?”
Ms Daly and Mr Wallace submitted an amendment to the resolution that said “the use of the European Parliament chamber to launder defamatory smears into the public domain is an abuse of parliamentary privilege”.
The two proposed other amendments stating that the resolution was a “transparent attempt to repress opposition in European democracy”, that “as yet no criminal case” had been opened regarding Ms Zdanoka, and that “the presumption of innocence” should be a key consideration.
The resolution, which was jointly backed by the centre-left, centre-right, Greens, and right-wing ECR group was passed with 433 votes in favour. Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Green MEPs voted in favour while Left independents Ms Daly, Mr Wallace and Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan voted against it. Sinn Féin’s Chris MacManus abstained.
During trips to Lithuania in November 2021, March 2022, and December 2022, Ms Daly, Mr Wallace and Ms Zdanoka spoke at a rally in support of Mr Paleckis, attended a court hearing, and visited him in prison. The two Irish MEPs also spoke in an online conference hosted by Ms Zdanoka about Mr Paleckis’ case.
On a recent episode of their podcast, Ms Daly criticised media coverage of the issue and said the two were “independent” and “not linked with anybody except ourselves”.
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Find The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Our In The News podcast is now published daily – Find the latest episode here
