Ex-Garda and new local election candidate John Wilson.

EXCLUSIVE: Cavan whistleblower to run in May elections

Paul Neilan

EXCLUSIVE

The ex-garda at the centre of the speeding tickets controversy will stand in the May Cavan local elections.

Retired garda John Wilson came to national prominence after he revealed details of the penalty-point terminations scandal in 2012 - the year he resigned from the gardai after he became a 'target'.

'A rat was nailed to my door,' he told The Anglo Celt, of one his more vivid experiences.

Mr Wilson will run as an independent in the Cavan Town-Belturbet area.

With the elections to the newly reconfigured County Council looming this May, the Cavan Town man has made the decision to add his name to the ballot paper. He will stand in the six-seater Cavan Town-Belturbet area.

“I am running,” he confirmed to The Celt this afternoon. “I have my documents in my hand.”

He admits that he’s a 'novice in the politcal game', but is determined to make a principled stand.

“I am fighting for people with no voice,” he said.

He intends to run on three key issues: 'A voice for all', which involves the Justice for All campaign; then a 'dedicated, fully resourced drug unit for Cavan Town' to combat the increase in narcotic crime and to fight for an increase in young people's options to prevent them falling into the growing drug trap.

Mr Wilson says he is not funded by anyone but is a voice, 'on my own', to dedicate himself to democracy.

Ex-garda Wilson is the brother of Fianna Fails's Senator Diarmuid Wilson - the director of local elections for the Soldiers of Destiny - but he confirmed that he intends to stand as an Independent.

He says he has no financial backers, but he has been in contact with the ‘Justice For All’ group, which staged a protest outside Mullingar Garda Station in support of garda whistleblower Mountnugent’s Maurice McCabe, where the Cavanman works, yesterday (Thursday). Mr Wilson also took part in that protest, which numbered around 150.

In 2012, Mr Wilson brought information about speeding ticket terminations to some members of Dail Éireann under the Garda Siochana Act 2005, after he was frustrated by the way his complaints were dealt with through the garda complaints system. He subsequently resigned from the force last May after he felt his position was no longer tenable.

Other candidates in the Cavan-Belturbet area are Fine Gael’s Peter McVitty, Jacqui Lewis, Madeleine Argue, Fianna Fáil’s John Paul Feeley, Sean Smith, and Patricia Walsh; Sinn Féin’s Damien Brady, Labour’s Mary Croke, and independents Noreen Briddigkeit and ex-Fine Gaeler Eamon Murray.