Call Judge Judy

The Presidential race has become a festival of mud-slinging that is carried on RTE for any who care to listen.

Sexual abuse, cover-up and scandal in the quest to make Aras an Uachtarain her home? In the case of Dana Rosemary Scallon, it's time to call on Judge Judy.

It's a family spat at the heart of the latest accusation launched at Presidential candidate Dana. And it's far more than the earlier dust-up over Ms. Scallon's possession of American citizenship and whether or not that disqualifies her from becoming Ireland's President.

This is the stuff that makes up the juiciest bits of Judge Judith Sheindlin's daily television program. Dana and her sister and her brother and her brother-in-law are all in the center of a sexual abuse allegation that's tangled up in the middle of a business spat over Heart Beat LLC.

Ms. Scallon's brother-in-law claims that his daughter was sexually abused by Ms. Scallon's brother, which then led to the legal dispute over the business they were all in jointly. Ms. Scallon says it's all a lie, and if the brother was indeed abusing the niece, why was there never a complaint lodged with the local police department?

The fact that the brother-in-law hired a team of personal injury lawyers to represent his side of the story back in 2008 had my American friends snorting in derision. Ambulance chasers, they said. The carrion crows of the legal profession. Such is the reputation of personal injury lawyers that they would think twice before believing anything such a legal advocate claimed to be true.

Then there's the lack of prosecution for a serious crime. You can almost hear Judge Judy now, tearing into the family who failed to seek justice for their daughter, and comes forward years later to use the accusation as leverage in a squabble over copyright issues.

Involved in a family dispute? The Scallon sisters clearly are. And while they may have agreed to disagree, to never speak again, the dirt's come out from under the rug. Such is the nature of hotly contested political races.

Yet what does Ms. Scallon's brother's purported behavior have to do with Ms. Scallon's ability to represent Ireland to the world?

Nothing at all.

But it makes for good copy. And good television. Call Judy now.