Media ‘whipped up hysteria’ over Golfgate and ‘a lot of good people had to resign’

Court hears ‘everybody jumped on the bandwagon’ to say organisers of the event ‘ignored the rules’ but that ‘certainly was not the case’

Independent TD Noel Grealish and former Fianna Fáil senator Donie Cassidy, along with hoteliers John Sweeney and James Sweeney, are each facing a summons related to organising an Oireachtas Golf Society event at the Station House Hotel in Clifden during pandemic restrictions on August 19, 2020. Picture: RollingNews.ie

A court has heard that the media of “whipped up public sentiment and hysteria” over Golfgate and “a lot of good people had to resign as a result.”

Legal teams representing two politicians and two hoteliers have submitted their clients were unfairly prosecuted as they had complied with Covid-19 regulations at all times during a two-day Oireachtas Golf Society outing in Connemara in 2020.

Independent TD Noel Grealish and Donie Cassidy, the former Fianna Fáil ...