Disability campaigner Ms Kathy Sinnott is to challenge last year's cliff-hanger general election result in Cork South Central on a number of grounds, including a claim that the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, did not declare the full extent of his election spending.
The High Court yesterday gave permission to Ms Sinnott, who lost out on a Dáil seat by just six votes, to bring a petition challenging the results of the election in her constituency. She ran as an Independent and is a well-known campaigner for the rights of the disabled.
Had Mr Martin declared his full expenses, Ms Sinnott claims he would have exceeded electoral spending limits.
Ms Sinnott's electoral agent, Mr Pádraig Ó Féinneadha, described yesterday's High Court decision as "very significant" and said it would place politicians' spending under greater scrutiny.
"We don't have a history of holding politicians to account over their election spending. Hopefully this will be a precedent and taxpayers will know what their money is spent on," he said.
The case will be closely observed by Cllr Nicky Kelly of the Labour Party and Cllr Nicky Kehoe of Sinn Féin, who also lost out narrowly on Dáil seats.
Today is the deadline for politicians to seek permission from the High Court to challenge the results in their constituencies.
Ms Sinnott also claims that two other Fianna Fáil deputies in her constituency, Mr Batt O'Keeffe and Mr John Dennehy, would also have exceeded the spending limits had their expenses statements included certain costs, particularly that of running a constituency party office.
Such costs had been deemed by the High Court to give sitting candidates an unfair advantage over non-sitting contenders.
It was also claimed that the mobile phone costs of Mr Martin and Mr Dennehy, and of their staff, were not included in their expenses statements. This alleged omission would have materially affected the election result in Cork South Central, Ms Sinnott claims.
Mr Ó Féinneadha said he had examined election expenses statements of several other Fianna Fáil ministers and these included items listed as expenditure which did not appear on Mr Martin's statement.
For example, expenditure declared by Ministers such as Mr Cowen and Mr Dempsey amounted to €13,393 and €25,662 respectively. The equivalent figure for Mr Martin was €7,402.