The Race for the Áras

by Tom Reddy

  On his web site Gallagher said he was giving serious consideration to the consistent calls, from people in business, community organisations and disability groups, ‘to offer myself as an independent candidate with a clear understanding of what is needed to help rebuild our community.’

  A former member of Fianna Fáil’s Ard-Chomhairle and its youth wing, Ógra Fianna Fáil, Gallagher immediately began canvassing Fianna Fáil members of the Oireachtas, seeking their support to secure a nomination. He insisted that he would stand as an independent and wanted only ten Fianna Fáil nominations and would then secure ten more from independent TDs and senators so that he could maintain a ‘semi-detached’ arrangement with his former party.

  One of those he canvassed was Séamus Kirk, a TD for Louth who, as former Ceann Comhairle, was returned automatically in the 2007 general election. But the previous election in 2002 was a completely different story. ‘HQ and myself were concerned about my polling,’ recalled Kirk. Shockingly, he was going to lose his seat despite his years of honest service to the constituency, according to the pollsters. Kirk recalled:

  I knew Seán. I met him regularly as a TD for the constituency and he came on board as Director of Elections. I knew him as a hugely dynamic person, a great organiser, established a strong election team, who met every week, reflected and reviewed the previous week, planned for the future and built a strong campaign. He was good with the media and certainly understood where they were coming from.

  A REDC opinion poll commissioned by the Drogheda Independent had the Fianna Fáil minister Dermot Ahern topping the poll at 26 per cent, Arthur Morgan of Sinn Féin at 16, Mairead McGuinness of Fine Gael at 14, her party colleague and sitting TD Fergus O’Dowd at 13, and Séamus Kirk trailing at 9, fifth in a four-seat constituency.

  Kevin Mulligan in the Drogheda Independent wrote an election analysis of the success of Kirk and his team’s efforts.

  Within an hour of opening the first boxes in the count centre in the Dundalk Institute of Technology it was clear that the story of this election was going to be the staggering re-election of Séamus Kirk to the first seat. And although it took many weary hours of counting, the eventual distribution of the constituency’s four seats was never going to be the cliff hanger that the pollsters and political pundits predicted.

  But with Gallagher in charge, Kirk had exceeded all expectations. His seat had been considered lost, but he returned with 10,190 first-preference votes and topped the poll—exceeding the vote for his party colleague Dermot Ahern, Minister for Foreign Affairs, by 170 votes. Fianna Fáil, against expectations, had scooped up more than 42 per cent of the first-preference vote in the Wee County. As Kirk recalled in the run-up to the presidential election,

  Seán was involved with the organisation, but not hugely involved in recent years, but I think in this Presidential election he’ll benefit from his Fianna Fáil association … I’d expect him to do pretty well, I think he could well be in the final shake-up, but it will all depend on the elimination process and where the votes go. If he can keep his first preferences above other independents and any party candidate he’s in with a real chance.

  On 9 May, Fingal County Council (north Co. Dublin) was the first council to pledge its support for a candidate. David Norris had previously written to every local authority asking to address them and seeking their support, and he was

  delighted to have received their support. It means that I am a quarter way to securing a nomination to run for the Presidency. Democracy is all about giving people choices, and I believe Fingal County Council have done just that.

  But on the same day the election process was given a legal clarification. Malcolm Byrne of Gorey, a Fianna Fáil member of Wexford County Council, proposed nominating Norris. However, the motion was quashed after the county secretary, Niall McDonnell, informed the chamber that the council could not pass a resolution nominating a candidate until the election order was made in September, before the November election. Co. Wexford would have been the first to vote on a nomination otherwise.

  So while candidates would canvass, and in some cases address, local authorities, the formal nomination could not be given, whatever verbal assurances and pledges were made, until September. Councils could only pledge support for a nomination, and a formal nomination could only be made once the minister signed the order for the election.

  The Fianna Fáil leader, Micheál Martin, said it was important that there be a ‘new way to do politics’ and confirmed that the parliamentary party would make a ‘definitive party position on the nomination’ the following month.

  Fine Gael had instructed its councillors throughout the country—in many cases they held the balance of power on local authorities—not to vote for the nomination of any independent candidate. Councillor Paddy Belton of Longford County Council spoke openly to the media about the ban imposed on him by Fine Gael head office. Norris had asked to address the council, and the council agreed; but before his arrival the Fine Gael group had contacted the party’s head office seeking advice.

  ‘We got word from headquarters,’ according to Belton, a farmer from Kenagh, about five miles outside the county town. ‘The instruction we got was to oppose him if it was proposed for Longford local authority to support him.’ Belton said he told Norris of the instruction they had received after Norris had addressed the meeting. Norris asked if they would consider abstaining. ‘No,’ said Belton, ‘I said this was instructions from HQ.’

  In Lower Mount Street, Micheál Martin took a different approach from that of his opposite number in Upper Mount Street, saying he would allow a free vote for Fianna Fáil councillors on nominations for the Áras.

  It is the Fianna Fáil view that the people of this country are entitled to have as wide a choice for the office of President as possible and that this office should not be limited to the official nominations of the political parties. For this reason, I will not be taking the same approach as other parties as they seek to block the nomination of independent candidates and will permit party representatives to facilitate the candidacy of individuals who they believe should have the right to stand before the electorate.

  Fianna Fáil also distanced itself from the former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. Reading between the lines, it was clear there was no nomination available for him. ‘I don’t think that’s something on the agenda at all,’ said Micheál Martin firmly.

  Fianna Fáil now had three options: to nominate its own party member as candidate; to offer support to an independent, such as Gallagher, who had already begun contacting Fianna Fáil members of the Oireachtas; or, radically, to set a precedent for the party by not running a candidate. Were the party to decide not to run a candidate it would be the first time since 1938 that it did not put forward a candidate, and in that instance Dr Douglas Hyde became the first President of Ireland in an uncontested election.

  ‘Martin needs to make up his mind if Fianna Fáil is going to run a candidate,’ Ahern said subsequently, telling the Evening Herald that ‘if Fianna Fáil are going to nominate someone they’d want to do it soon, because it’s May now and time is running out.’ Reconciled to a lost cause, he said:

  I definitely won’t be putting my name on the list. I always said I’d have my mind made up by St Patrick’s Day but I actually decided before that, as far back as January.

  I don’t have the funds, for a start, to mount a campaign. You need a lot of money for these things. I don’t expect I would have the support either. When you look at Brian Lenihan’s campaign in 1990, he went in with a 44 per cent approval rating and still didn’t get it. Now with the party on 17 per cent approval after the election, even if you doubled it you still wouldn’t come close to what Brian Lenihan had.

  Ahern had been Lenihan’s director of elections in his presidential bid. He predicted that if John Bruton

  puts his name forward he could get it. Also Michael D. Higgins and David Norris have a very good chance and both are great speakers and very experienced, and would rep
resent us well abroad.

  As two former Taoisigh bowed out of the contest without ever formally entering it, Pat Cox, a former party leader and president of the European Parliament, dipped his toe into the political waters. A former member of Fianna Fáil, a founder-member of the Progressive Democrats and an MEP, he said he was open to a nomination and support from political parties. ‘I’m open on all fronts after declaring an interest to see what’s out there that might permit me to get a nomination and take to the field,’ he said. Questioned, he said: ‘I certainly would take some time to consider it … I am prepared to ask myself a question this week that wasn’t even on my mind a week ago.’

  The columnist Eamon Keane cast his eye over the candidates. Cox wouldn’t set the Park alight, he wrote. Fine Gael MEP Seán Kelly had pushed through admirable reforms in the GAA, but was the Presidency a bridge too far? he asked, suggesting that Fine Gael might yet spring a surprise. Both Mairead McGuinness and John Bruton were more capable than charismatic. And had Fergus Finlay the same charisma as either Higgins or Norris?

  Thankfully Norris has the sort of devilment in him that you wish the other candidates had. Remember his reaction to Cardinal Desmond Connell’s comments on the evils of homosexuality? Connell had previously written a thesis on how God acts through angels. Norris was succinct in his reply: Dr Connell may know everything there is to know about angels, but you can take it from me that he knows sweet f all about fairies.

  A star of the ‘Dragons’ Den’ programme, Seán Gallagher had already received the support of Senator Feargal Quinn and was canvassing hard to secure the nomination of nine other independents and hopefully to secure the balance of support required from ten Fianna Fáil Oireachtas members. He was also canvassing local authorities seeking their support—like Norris, adopting a belt-and-braces approach.

  Gallagher said he was happy to take support across party lines, despite being a former member of the Fianna Fáil Ard-Chomhairle. At the launch by Console of its suicide bereavement and prevention service he said:

  If I or any other company was employing somebody they would not look at their political background. They would look at the role, what that role should be, and the skill sets required to be effective.

  At the same event David Norris thanked Micheál Martin for allowing a free vote for Fianna Fáil councillors.

  Micheál Martin has started the process of opening it up because he has said that people of substance should be allowed into the race. He has released the councillors. That’s a beginning. I think he has further to go, but I thank him for it.

  However, he questioned the reason for Fine Gael deliberately blocking him. ‘My candidacy has raised questions which the Fine Gael party have to resolve for themselves,’ he said.

  Mary Hanafin, speaking at Fianna Fáil’s Ard-Chomhairle meeting on the last Thursday of the month, said the party ‘was in the business of contesting for the highest office in the land. You can’t throw in the towel because there might not be another Presidential election for fourteen years.’ It was construed as a clear signal that she was interested in seeking the party’s nomination.

  Mary Hanafin’s family was steeped in Fianna Fáil. Her cousins were and had been councillors in Co. Tipperary, her brother John was a senator, and her father, Des, had been a long-time senator and fund-raiser for the party. He was also a staunch opponent of divorce and abortion and a founder of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children. Mary Hanafin was one of three potential candidates to emerge from the Premier County and the first from Thurles. A former teacher who had been involved in politics since she was fifteen—the nuns in her boarding-school allowed her out in the middle of the week to attend local cumann meetings—she had also served as a Dublin city councillor. As a former Minister for Education, Minister for Social Welfare and also Minister for Tourism she was considered a strong contender for the party leadership after Brian Cowen stepped aside, but she lost her Dún Laoghaire seat in the Fianna Fáil general election bloodbath.

  Until the leadership and the sub-committee made up its mind about whether or not to run a candidate, Hanafin would continue to figure in online debates and media speculation as a possible candidate both for the Áras and for the by-election seat in Dublin West after the death of Brian Lenihan.

  The former minister Éamon Ó Cuív delivered what was unknowingly a similar, and ironic, message to the Ard-Chomhairle meeting, saying that Sinn Féin would never run a candidate in East Belfast if its only concern was electoral defeat.

  The same meeting heard that the party was more than €2 million in debt, and the party leader, Martin, advised people to ‘live in the real world’, which suggested that he was leaning towards not running a candidate. Hanafin would argue the case subsequently, saying, ‘Even if you don’t win it, that’s not the point: it’s about being part of the democratic process—that’s what we are.’

  Next door to the Dáil, in the National Library, Mary Davis had called a press conference for Thursday 27 May. Her web site went live, and a Facebook presence followed shortly. Announcing her decision to seek a nomination from county councils throughout the country, she confirmed that she would write to them seeking their support. In the coming months she would travel the country, embarking on a time-consuming personal canvass of as many council members as she could manage, calling to their homes or meeting in local hotels or in council offices.

  Among the members of her team was her husband, Julian, a founding director of one of the biggest public relations companies in the country, Fleishman-Hillard. The campaign chairperson, Peter Fitzgerald, was a former deputy commissioner of the Garda Síochána; others included Ryan Meader—a former adviser to the Green Party minister John Gormley—and the Newbridge councillor Fiona O’Loughlin. The PR consultant Toni Wall would be the tour advance party. In the back room offering advice was the former Fianna Fáil general secretary Martin Mackin, while Suzanne Coogan, former PR adviser to the Minister for Defence, Willie O’Dea, handled the media.

  Davis, speaking in front of a light-blue backdrop, said,

  I’m standing as an independent: I don’t have any political affiliations, I’ve never had all my life. So I’ll be looking for support across all political parties when I go to talk to county councillors over the coming weeks and months.

  She said she intended running an ‘Obama-style’ grass-roots campaign based on local communities. ‘I’ve always been supported by communities at local levels. That is why I’m seeking county council nominations, so I intend to raise money in that way as well.’

  Davis was awarded the Person of the Year award in 2003 for bringing the hugely successful Special Olympics to Ireland—the first time they were held outside the United States—and mobilising and motivating communities in cities, towns and villages throughout the country. As the managing director of Special Olympics Europe and Eurasia she had a formidable informal network that went into every community of host towns and villages in the country, while internationally she had demonstrated considerable diplomatic and representational skills. Her arrival on the electoral stage was a source of concern for all the candidates as they worked out her demographic appeal and prospects.

  Davis announced that she would adopt a theme of ‘building communities’, saying that all her life she has ‘been committed to the values of equality, fairness, respect, empowerment and involvement. I believe these values are very relevant to the times we live in and to the office as President.’

  Davis, like other candidates, was concerned at the head-start and the free run that Norris had won by declaring his interest publicly and early. A series of soft interviews had followed his declaration, and now those eyeing up the race knew that they would be playing catch-up.

  A few days after her declaration of intent, Davis appeared on the Pat Kenny programme in a mini-debate during which, according to the following day’s Irish Independent, she became the latest presidential hopeful to put their foot in it, damaging their campaign.

  In 2004
Davis had been appointed by President McAleese to the Council of State, which provides advice to the President. When questioned about referring a Finance Bill to the Supreme Court when President if she thought it was unfair, Davis said she would. ‘If it’s not fair, if it’s not equal for people, no, I will not sign it into law. I will refer it,’ she said.

  She was taken to task immediately by a member of the studio audience, who pointed out that the President is not allowed to refer any bills to the Supreme Court simply because it is regarded as unfair: a bill could be referred only if it was unconstitutional. Under article 26 of the Constitution, the President doesn’t have the power to refer a money bill—for example, the budget as implemented by the passing of the annual Finance Bill—to the Supreme Court, and it would simply pass into law if the President did not sign it.

  While the gaffe raised questions about Davis’s understanding of her obligations and her role as a member of the Council of State, her election team was able to breathe a sigh of relief, as there was minimal negative comment. One adviser suggested that the issue was not one that most people would engage with and that it was one of the benefits of being so far out from the election date that the public’s curiosity was engaged in learning about the candidates but had not progressed to a detailed examination of their experience or background.

  In the Labour Party camp, both Finlay and Higgins had been canvassing members of the parliamentary party in the corridors and over coffee in Leinster House. Each candidate had until 3 June to secure the nomination of at least one Labour Party constituency council to enter the race. Sixteen days later the TDs, MEPs, senators and Executive Board members would hold a selection convention. For Finlay,