Former justice minister Alan Shatter has initiated defamation proceedings against People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy over a post on X claiming he had met Jeffrey Epstein.
The former Fine Gael minister never met Epstein or had any dealings with convicted sex offender who died by suicide in prison in 2019.
False allegations circulated on social media platforms earlier this year after a new tranche of Epstein files were released by the US Department of Justice.
It was falsely claimed Mr Shatter had a meeting with Epstein 15 years ago.
A 2011 travel itinerary of Eric Holder, former president Barack Obama's attorney general, was falsely purported to be the itinerary of Epstein
Mr Holder's itinerary showed him meeting Mr Shatter and the then secretary general of the Department of Justice on his visit to Ireland in September 2011.
Solicitors for Mr Shatter lodged papers yesterday initiating defamation proceedings against Mr Murphy for retweeting another X user who questioned why RTÉ was not reporting Epstein’s supposed meeting with Mr Shatter in 2011.
