The following is the full text of a statement released by Dana Rosemary Scallon this evening, following allegations regarding members of her family.

A most despicable and malicious campaign of hatred is currently being directed at myself and my family.

I brought this into the public domain for the following reason; last week I was falsely accused of being a part of a deceptive cover-up regarding my Irish/ US dual citizenship, which I subsequently proved to be untrue on presentation of my citizenship certificate. Before I produced the citizenship certificate, I received a malicious email which began ‘HAHAHAHAHAH – The bitch finally gets what she deserves’. I will not repeat further details of the email which goes on to threaten the release of further malicious and untrue allegations and also attempts to implicate me.

Following on from this, prior to the Prime Time debate on Wednesday, a free-lance journalist contacted me claiming that he was going to run two page stories dealing with a malicious allegation against one of my family members and attempting to implicate me. I felt it best to confront this head on and after legal advice I made my statement in the Prime Time debate. I knew by the tone of the threatening email I had received that the writer was determined to ‘out’ this malicious accusation. This false accusation first surfaced in a family dispute court case approx. 5 years ago and was denied. No further action was taken. It now conveniently surfaces again during my Presidential campaign. In fact in an alleged period of over 30 years there has never been a complaint lodged.

I am appalled that person or persons would seek to do this to my family. I have never knowingly done harm to any person and while some may not agree with my political, religious or social positions on certain matters, no family deserves to be the subject of such a malicious campaign. My family and I have agreed that to walk away now from the Presidential campaign would be to give support to the orchestrated campaign that I believe is being peddled from a specific source and I will not let this happen.

My sincere thanks to all those who have sent messages of support in these difficult times to myself and my family. I look forward to the next two weeks of campaigning and a Presidential result that will finally reflect the true will of the People.

Read: Dana vows to continue campaign despite family allegations >