Defeated general election candidate Ms Kathy Sinnott has secured leave from the High Court to challenge the result of last year's general election in Cork South Central.
The grounds for the challenge include a claim that the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, did not include his full electoral expenses in his statutory declaration of those expenses.
Had Mr Martin included the full expenses, Ms Sinnott claims he would have exceeded electoral spending limits. Ms Sinnott ran as an Independent and is a well-known campaigner for the rights of the disabled.
She also claims two other elected Fianna Fáil Deputies in the constituency, Mr Batt O'Keeffe and Mr John Dennehy, would have exceeded the spending limits had their expenses statements included certain costs, particularly of running a constituency party office as opposed to that of an individual candidate. Such costs had been deemed by the High Court to give sitting candidates an unfair advantage over non-sitting contenders.
It was also claimed the mobile phone costs of Mr Martin and Mr Dennehy, and the mobile phone costs of their staff, were not included in their expenses statements.
This alleged Fáilure to include the costs referred to would have materially affected the result of the general election in Cork South Central, Ms Sinnott claims.
Ms Sinnott's electoral agent, Mr Padraig O Feinneadha, that he had examined election expenses statements of several Fianna Fáil ministers and these included items listed as expenditure which did not appear in Mr Martin's statement.
Mr O Feinneadha also said the norm for Fianna Fáil TDs in five seater constituencies was to allocate half the spending limit of some €38,000 to the party — a figure of some €19,046. She said Mr Martin had allocated some €15,546 while Mr O'Keeffe had allocated €18,796.
There was "no logical explanation" why the two FF candidates did not assign the norm amount to Fianna Fáil, particularly in Mr Martin's case as he was a high-profile figure who was expected to and did exceed the quota on the first count.
Mr John Rogers SC, with Mr Ross Maguire, for Ms Sinnott, secured leave from Mr Justice Peart to bring a petition challenging the election result. The petition is brought in the names of Ms Sinnott, of Ballinnhassig, Co Cork, and a Mr James Hegarty, described as an elector in the Cork South Central constituency.