Ireland

TD Mick Wallace jailed for failing to pay court fine

An unmarked Garda car enters Limerick Prison with jailed TD Mick Wallace. Picture by RTE
An unmarked Garda car enters Limerick Prison with jailed TD Mick Wallace. Picture by RTE An unmarked Garda car enters Limerick Prison with jailed TD Mick Wallace. Picture by RTE

THE Independent TD who sparked a political storm with his allegations about the sale of Nama’s Project Eagle has been jailed on Wednesday for failing to pay a court fine.

Wexford deputy Mick Wallace may have to spend Christmas behind bars after he was arrested by appointment at Dublin’s Clontarf Garda Station this morning and later driven to Limerick Prison.

The former developer, who was elected to the Dáil in 2011, has been jailed for failing to pay a €2,000 fine imposed by Ennis District Court.

In April, Judge Patrick Durcan found Mr Wallace and fellow TD Clare Daly guilty of breaching airport regulations when entering a restricted area at Shannon airport on July 22 2014 during a protest against the US military’s use of the facility as a stopover.

Speaking on the court steps at the time, Mr Wallace declared: “I wouldn’t pay that fine to save my life”.

Arriving at the prison in an unmarked Garda car this afternoon, Mr Wallace told waiting reporters that prison “won’t be as bad for me as it is for the people in Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan”.

Mr Wallace made headlines in the summer when he used Dáil privilege to allege that a £7 million fixer's fee in an Isle of Man bank account was “reportedly earmarked for a Northern Ireland politician” or party, as part of the £1.3 billion sale of Nama’s Northern Ireland loan portfolio to US investment firm Cerberus.

He has also claimed in Leinster House in September that £45 million was paid in “fixer fees” in relation to the sale.

Nama has denied any wrongdoing.

Anti-war groups have rallied around the jailed TD, with Shannonwatch demanding his “immediate release”.

The group said that the two convicted deputies had “spent years trying to get answers from government ministers about the US military planes passing through Shannon”.

Spokesman Edward Horgan said that if Mr Wallace remained in the prison there would be a peace vigil at its doors at 5pm on Friday to “enable supporters to show their solidarity”.

“We intend to let the voice of the Irish people be heard speaking truth to power,” he said.

The Galway Alliance Against War also condemned the arrest, saying: “It highlights once more the hypocrisy of this government, which pretends to support peace in the world and Irish neutrality, but at the same time allows Shannon airport to continue to be a US military base through which Washington has waged war on the world for the past 14 years leaving a bloody trail of countless deaths and widespread devastation resulting in an ever growing swell of refugees.”

Workers’ Party president Michael Donnelly said his party supported calls by the Peace & Neutrality Alliance (PANA) for a picket to be placed outside Leinster House tomorrow at 1pm.