Gemma fight against corruption in Ireland ACI 23 July 2019 Gemma O'Doherty (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. 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. Personal 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; Gemma was his second wife. Journalism Irish Independent (1995–2014) Gemma 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 news gathering methods. Another Irish journalist has questioned the impact of her investigative work and her use of "theories of conspiracy". 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. 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 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 for the Irish Independent during the course of a lengthy career". 2019 Dublin Fingal by-election 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. 2019 European elections 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, 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. 2020 general election 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. ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tURL3pX9vs