[caption id="attachment_68355" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Dana Rosemary Scallon."]
Unsuccessful Irish presidential candidate Dana Rosemary Scallon is facing legal action from her own sister and niece over claims she made during her election campaign.
The former member of the European Parliament, and onetime winner of the Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland made a number of allegations during an interview with broadcaster TV3 ahead of the October presidential poll.
Dana's sister, Susan Stein, who lives in Iowa, and niece Susan Gorrell were behind a court summons last week and the pair hope the case will be heard before the high court before the summer.
Gorrell (42) is alleging that Dana's brother ,John Brown, abused her on a number of occasions when she was aged between five and 13, and the claims came to light during a television debate in the run up to the election.
The RTE debate audience and fellow candidates including Sinn Féin's martin McGuinness and eventual winner Michael D. Higgins were stunned when Dana referred to "malicious" and "vile" allegations against her family.
"It has come to my attention that yet further allegations, this time of a most untrue and malicious vile nature, have been leveled against a member of my family," she said.
The "All Kinds of Everything" singer later repeated her claims during the TV3 interview, despite American lawyers for Ms. Gorrell warning just two hours before the interview was broadcast that legal action would be taken if it was aired.
Following the row breaking out, Mr. Brown, who had been helping his sister in her bid to become Ireland's ninth president, withdrew from her campaign.
Ms. Gorrell, meanwhile, is working as a film producer. Her husband, Ken Gorrell, previously won an Emmy in 2008 for his work on the HBO mini-series "John Adams,"which depicted the life story of America's second president.
