Gemma O'Doherty

O'Doherty ran as an independent candidate (as ACI is not registered as a political party) in the Dublin Fingal constituency, in the 2020 general election. She secured 1.97% of the first preference vote and was eliminated on the fifth count.

O'Doherty's controversial views on a range of subjects have led to a number of legal actions and calls for changes to hate-crime legislation. She has been described in the media as a conspiracy theorist and, in July 2019, was banned from YouTube for violations of the site's policies on hate speech.

In August 2019, Village published an editorial on O'Doherty and her relationship with the magazine. It described her as "the It girl for Irish extremism: racism, anti-Islamism, homophobia and transphobia." It defended her previous freelance work for the magazine and the publication of articles by her, saying "O'Doherty's politics were not offensive until some time after Village published its last piece by her" and concluded by stating "Meanwhile Village will continue to publish investigative journalism on the basis of the journalism rather than the author, unless the author shows evidence of failing to recognise democratic norms. Once O’Doherty revealed herself as racist she was no longer welcome in these pages."

In February 2019, O'Doherty founded "Anti-Corruption Ireland", described as a "political movement", which promotes "'truth, justice and integrity in public office', where public servants who abuse citizens' rights and their taxes will lose their jobs, pensions and their liberty", and which is based on "20 core pillars". However, O'Doherty's strong § Opinions across a range of subjects (e.g. Muslim immigration, HPV vaccine, LGBT rights, and George Soros), including "false flag" claims regarding the March 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings, became an issue for the ACI. In March and April 2019, the Imperial and Maritime hotels in Cork, a pub in Sligo and a parish hall in Schull cancelled public meetings that had been booked by ACI. In April 2019, the Ballyvolane House hotel in Cork cancelled another ACI booking, citing O'Doherty's views as the reason. As of August 2019, the ACI is not a registered political party in Ireland.

On 10 April 2019, O'Doherty announced that she intended standing in May's European Parliament election, in the Dublin constituency. O'Doherty registered as an independent candidate, and not an ACI candidate, as ACI is not a registered political party, with newspapers reporting her saying that she was going to offer Anti-Corruption Ireland to the Irish people, and saying that "if they don’t want it I can say that I tried but they didn’t want it, they wanted to continue to pursue the death of their country", and adding that she "can’t do it on my own". However, O'Doherty continued to use ACI branding on some of her European election campaign posters and literature.

In May 2019, adverts for O'Doherty and ACI appeared on the sides of Dublin Bus, the public service transport operator, carrying the slogan "It is time to take Ireland back". The adverts were criticised by LGBT activists and the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU), with the union's General Secretary, Dermot O’Leary, writing to Ray Coyne the CEO of Dublin Bus, to say that "there is a direct contradiction between the views/principles of the candidate and the indisputable fact that Dublin Bus is a multicultural employer." Dublin Bus's parent company, Córas Iompair Éireann, subsequently announced it and its subsidiary companies would no longer allow political advertising.

O'Doherty was a candidate in the 2019 Dublin Fingal by-election held on 29 November 2019. She received 1,026 (4.1%) first preference votes and was eliminated on the third count. Following the election, Minister for Justice Charles Flanagan suggested that the Irish media had given O'Doherty a "free pass" for her views on immigration, after Fine Gael's candidate for the Wexford by-election, Verona Murphy, had been criticised for linking migration to Ireland with ISIS.

O'Doherty is associated with anti-immigration views, which she defends saying: "Because I have always stood up for the poor; I see the inequality. That’s my academic background," she said. "That's why I'm against mass immigration, mass uncontrolled immigration as opposed to controlled immigration." She said that mass uncontrolled immigration drives down wages.

In July 2019, O'Doherty's YouTube channel was permanently removed for violations of YouTube policy against hate speech. The Irish Times reported that O'Doherty's account had been suspended the week before after posting a video regarding ethnic minorities in Ireland; however, O'Doherty appeared to evade this ban by using an alternative account. The Times quoted a spokesman for Google saying that "both Ms O’Doherty’s accounts have been removed for “repeat” breaches of its rules", and that "When users violate these policies repeatedly, such as our policies against hate speech and harassment, or our terms prohibiting circumvention of our enforcement measures, we terminate their accounts".

O'Doherty announced on 19 August 2018 she was seeking a nomination to stand for the Irish presidency in the 2018 election on an anti-corruption platform. However, her campaign fell into controversy when during a nomination hearing she stated that there was state collusion in the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin, and threatened councillors, including the brother of Veronica Guerin, with libel after her claims were strongly disputed. O'Doherty's claims drew labels of a conspiracy theorist from the Irish media, including Veronica's brother, councillor Jimmy Guerin. On 24 September, Laois County Council became the only council to nominate her as a presidential candidate. Having failed to reach the required four county council nominations by 26 September, she could not stand for election. O'Doherty attributed her failure to secure the political nominations to being "blocked by the political elite from contesting", which was linked to her campaign against political corruption.

In September 2018, during the presidential election campaign, O'Doherty drew criticism for her claim, described as conspiratorial, that the state colluded in the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin. The Irish political satire magazine, The Phoenix, called O’Doherty's claim a "credibility destroying move", and said "that ludicrous assertion helped to scupper her bid for a presidential nomination".

In late 2017, O'Doherty wrote an article, published by Village magazine, concerning allegations of long-term child sexual abuse in Terenure College, Dublin, and followed it up in early 2018 with allegations that the Gardaí did not act on information they had about issues regarding the College's rugby coach, John McClean. A year later, McClean was formally charged with indecently assaulting nine students in Terenure College over a 17-year period.

In 2016, O'Doherty produced a documentary, Mary Boyle: The Untold Story, about the disappearance of a child in 1977, which was published on YouTube. The disappearance of Mary Boyle is the longest running missing child case in Ireland, and the documentary implies political interference in the investigation. The documentary led to O'Doherty being sued for defamation by the late Fianna Fáil politician, Sean McEniff, for damages of €75,000. In 2019, after McEniff's death, a judge granted his estate leave to continue the case.

O'Doherty lodged a complaint about her dismissal with the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT), which was resolved in 2014 with Independent News & Media plc praising her contributions to the newspaper and tendering an unreserved apology, whilst paying her an undisclosed sum. Similarly, she won a defamation case against the Irish Independent at the High Court, where the newspaper stated: "Independent Newspapers wish to acknowledge the exceptional work of multi-award winning investigative journalist Gemma O'Doherty for the Irish Independent during the course of a lengthy career".

In March 2014, O'Doherty set up a Twitter account. In 2017, the annual "#murraytweetindex", which ranks the influence of Twitter accounts of Irish journalists, ranked O'Doherty's Twitter account as the 7th most influential overall account, 3rd most influential news category account, and the most retweeted account. By 2018, O'Doherty had fallen out of the top 20 most influential accounts; the "#murraytweetindex" website ranked her as the 26th-most influential overall account, but she retained her position as the third-most influential news category account.

In 2013, while investigating the penalty points cancellation scandal, O'Doherty sought to question Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan about the quashing of his own speeding points and called to his private home at approximately 10pm in order to do so, speaking to Callinan's wife. In August 2013, Doherty was fired from the Irish Independent and, though the newspaper rejected any links between the firing and the phone call, editor-in-chief Stephen Rae branded her as a "rogue reporter" for approaching the commissioner without editorial permission. The Irish National Union of Journalists condemned the dismissal as unfair.

O'Doherty received 1.8% of the first-preference votes, finishing 12th out of 19 candidates in the first count. She was eliminated on the 9th count.

In 2010, O'Doherty wrote an article highlighting issues in the investigation into the 1985 death of a priest, Niall Molloy, after a society wedding in County Offaly that included senior Irish political figures, and the collapse of the subsequent manslaughter trial. Her work led to the reopening of the case. According to O'Doherty, her research had "exposed a cover-up of staggering proportions involving several institutions of the State and the Catholic Church." However, in 2015, a follow-up Garda review of the case concluded that the original Garda investigation was correctly concluded.

O'Doherty joined the Irish Independent in 1995 as a staff writer, later becoming Chief Features Writer. However, her highest-profile work concerned her reporting on Ireland's criminal justice system and on allegations of corruption in the Irish police force. In 2013, Roy Greenslade in The Guardian, at the time she was fired from the Irish Independent, described her as "one of Ireland's leading investigative journalists", but mentioned concerns over the ethics of her newsgathering methods. Another Irish journalist has questioned the impact of her investigative work and her use of "theories of conspiracy".

Gemma O'Doherty (born 24 August 1968) is an Irish former journalist. As a former staff writer for the Irish Independent, O'Doherty worked in a range of areas, including on the criminal justice system and corruption, which allegedly led to her dismissal in 2014. As a political candidate, O'Doherty failed to secure the nominations required to run in the 2018 Irish presidential election, was unsuccessful in the 2019 European Parliament election in Ireland (with 1.85% of first preference votes in the Dublin constituency), and also unsuccessful in the 2020 Irish general election (with under 2% of the vote).

Gemma O'Doherty was born in Ranelagh in Dublin, to Hubert O'Doherty, a pharmacist, and his wife Sheila. O'Doherty has a BA in Politics and an MA in Equality Studies from University College Dublin. She was a teacher before becoming a journalist, and lived in Spain for a number of years. She is the widow of the editor of the Irish Independent' s Sunday Review, Peter Carvosso. Born in England in 1947, he died of motor neurone disease in January 2015, aged 67; O'Doherty was his second wife.