by Tom Reddy
when I started out to make contact with each of the sixty or so people who have a vote in this contest, I said to myself if this is going nowhere I will know pretty quickly … I have had conversations with about two-thirds of them, and I don’t think anyone could call the result. I am more than sufficiently encouraged. I think the outcome is unpredictable.
A straw poll suggested that Finlay was drawing support from a number of new parliamentary party members and those with advocacy links, while Higgins’s support came from the party hierarchy and the left wing of the party. Higgins had already secured the support of Brendan Howlin, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, who would propose him at the selection convention, and Kathleen Lynch, Minister of State at the Department of Health, who would second his nomination.
But with only a few days to qualify for the convention, the RTE journalist and former senator Kathleen O’Meara announced that she would contest the election. Originally from Shinrone, Co. Offaly, she had been a town councillor in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary, was a senator from 1997 to 2007, elected on the Agriculture panel, and was a former adviser to the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Eithne FitzGerald (Labour Party), a daughter-in-law of the former Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald. A triplet, O’Meara is a sister of the journalist Aileen O’Meara. She was the head of advocacy and communications with the Irish Cancer Society in Dublin but returned home to Nenagh at the weekends. She had also unsuccessfully contested three general elections for a seat in North Tipperary.
This presidential election is taking place during one of the most difficult and challenging times in this nation’s history, but also at a time when many citizens are asking who we are as a nation, what are our values, what do we cherish and who do we need to be to build our nation again … I want to build a project, a national engagement, a conversation which would take place in every community in Ireland, asking those questions and hearing from the people themselves about who they want us, Ireland, to be.
This vision would be given expression in a new proclamation, she said, to be declared in 2016, the centenary of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. She said the Proclamation was ambitious and inspiring. However,
we did not cherish all the children of the nation equally, for instance, and still don’t. And we have had to concede sovereignty in the face of a financial failure, in order to survive and continue to exist … Amidst the wreckage we are now in, it is an opportunity to start again, to preserve the best of what we have created and build a new vision to take this nation forward. The theme of the next presidency, under my leadership, would be building the nation. This is why I am seeking this nomination.
In his negotiations with the party hierarchy, John Bruton emphasised his economic and diplomatic expertise and experience. He also opened a discussion about extending the powers of the President. However, this did not sit comfortably with Enda Kenny and senior party members, sparking fears of a President eclipsing the Government.
The negotiations spilled into the public domain when Mairead McGuinness issued a statement in which she said that any increase in powers for the President could lead to ‘an unhealthy and corrosive tension between the President and the Government and could also render the office prey to lobbyists and pressure groups.’ This last reference could also be taken as a criticism of the new rival, Pat Cox, who had worked as an EU lobbyist in Brussels.
Within a fortnight Bruton had made it clear to the party leadership that he was not going to allow his name to go forward. Instead he would concentrate on his work with the Irish Financial Services Centre. As he cryptically explained to the Sunday Times when confronted about his decision not to allow his name go forward, ‘if I had any internal communications with members of the party I wouldn’t be discussing them with the media. I have been asked those questions in public and I have given those answers in public. What I have said is what I have said. There is nothing to add.’
There had been extensive discussions within Fine Gael about the electoral support for John Bruton as the agreed party candidate, rather than a potentially damaging raising of old divisions at a selection convention. Bruton was considered a strong candidate for the party, as its national standing would translate into a landslide vote for him. However, the MEPs McGuinness and Kelly were both keen for a contest, and consensus was unlikely.
Bruton had been holding talks with the party hierarchy with two specific aims: to get an agreed coalition candidate and to seek an expansion of the role of President. His discussions with party leaders emphasised article 10 of the Constitution, which allowed for additional powers and functions to be conferred on the President by law. However, this fundamental change in the role of the Presidency put the political antennae of party leaders on high alert, as they could see a President Bruton commanding the national and international stage rather than a Taoiseach, Kenny.
The talks were going nowhere. Bruton decided to pull out of the race and issued a brief statement at the end of the month.
I discussed the matter thoroughly with the party’s representatives. I promised to reflect carefully on the request and respond … I did so about ten days ago [mid-May 2011] when I said, with regret, that I did not wish my name to be among those considered.
Another opinion poll that weekend included withdrawn, declared and speculative candidates. Bruton, who had just withdrawn, was polling poorly and was in second place, at 11 per cent, but the runaway winner was Norris, at 41 per cent. The other candidates were bunched in two groups: Higgins at 9 per cent, Finlay at 8 per cent and Cox at 7 per cent; Crowley polling a poor 5 per cent, Gallagher at 3 per cent and McGuinness at 2 per cent.
A few days later Seán Kelly ruled himself out after months of speculation that he would contest the Fine Gael convention. He made his formal announcement on RTE’s ‘Morning Ireland’, explaining that he had both personal and political reasons.
It was my own decision. Serious momentum was starting to build up behind me, but I felt that I could make a bigger contribution to Europe and Munster by withdrawing from the race. The last thing they [the electorate] want is a candidate who isn’t committed to the job. My gut instinct is not to go with it.
Kelly also said that his father had died the previous month, that his mother was living alone and that he still had some family in school, all considerations that had influenced his decision.
Chapter 5
THE PARADE RING
The withdrawal of Bruton and Kelly focused the minds of senior party members in Fine Gael, particularly the troika of the Minister for the Environment, Phil Hogan, the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, and the deputy director of elections, Frank Flannery.
Fine Gael had never had a candidate elected to the Presidency, but if it could transfer its strength and support as shown in the opinion polls, for both party and leader, it could easily win the office. The question was who its candidate should be—and, perhaps more to the point, who should decide what was best for the party: a swell from the grass roots or an ‘informed’ decree from Mount Street?
Fine Gael had commissioned research, not about who the public wanted as a candidate but about what qualities they wanted from a candidate. John Bruton ticked all the boxes; the number 2 selection was Pat Cox. Now, with Bruton out of the contest, there was only one choice if it was to secure the Park for the first time. Reflecting the old adage about a week being a long time in politics, an afternoon—at a wedding—was to influence Fine Gael’s tilt at the Presidency.
On the day of their thirty-first wedding anniversary, Friday 3 June, Gay and Norma Mitchell were at the wedding in Donegal of Fine Gael’s Dublin regional organiser, Colm Jordan, to a local woman, Alison Hamilton. Jordan took up a new position with Alan Shatter when the latter was appointed Minister for Justice.
At the reception in Lough Eske Castle Hotel, the Mitchells were seated at the dinner with the former minister Nora Owen and her husband, the Dublin TDs Terence Flanagan and Eoghan Murphy and the chairperson of the party’s Executive Council, Bria
n Murphy, a former adviser to Mitchell who now worked in the office of Leo Varadkar, Minister for Transport. Also seated nearby were the ministers Frances Fitzgerald and Alan Shatter, the minister of state Brian Hayes and the Dublin councillor Neale Richmond, who was previously an assistant to Mitchell.
The Presidency was a topic of conversation among the politicians: the nomination of Cox had been in the news that morning, John Bruton had withdrawn from the race, and Mairead McGuinness was still seeking the nomination.
As dinner progressed, one of the guests suggested that either Nora Owen—a sister of Mary Banotti, who had unsuccessfully carried the Fine Gael standard in the Presidential election fourteen years earlier—or Gay Mitchell should put their name forward.
Gabriel ‘Gay’ Mitchell (59) was first elected to the Dáil in 1981 for the sprawling Dublin South-Central constituency, which includes Terenure, Crumlin, Walkinstown and Ballyfermot. He gave up his seat in 2007, saying he wanted to concentrate his energies on the European Parliament, to which he was first elected in 2004. He had previously served as Lord Mayor of Dublin, during which time he launched an initiative to bring the Olympic Games to Dublin, and was Minister of State for European Affairs from 1994 to 1997. He lost out in the party’s leadership contest in 2002 to Enda Kenny.
On the four-hour journey back to Dublin his wife, Norma, took the steering-wheel, while Mitchell canvassed friends, party colleagues and its leader, Kenny, for their opinion about him making a bid for the Presidency. In a statement seven days later he announced his decision.
I have been giving serious consideration to the possibility of running for President. Yesterday I attended the funeral of Declan Costello whose political principles and approach to public service convinced me to join Fine Gael at the age of 16. Since then my political conviction is informed by a Christian Democratic ethos, based on four pillars: rights and responsibilities, enterprise and social justice.
Declan Costello, who had died at the age of eighty-four, was the son of the former Taoiseach John A. Costello, served in the Dáil for twenty years, was first elected in 1951 for Fine Gael, served as Attorney-General and later became president of the High Court. He pushed Fine Gael to the left in the 1960s and persuaded the party to publish his document ‘Towards a Just Society’, which was taken up as party policy by Garret FitzGerald. The former Taoiseach John Bruton would also cite him as his inspiration for entering politics.
Mitchell went into detail about twenty-six years of service as a Fine Gael TD and about his various political roles, but he made no reference to his decision, six months earlier, not to run for the Áras. He said he believed in unity in diversity but not in
a diversity that includes only the politically correct … I want to play my part in ensuring that Ireland’s views are heard where it matters and that they are heeded. This may require more perspiration than inspiration, and I believe I have the experience and the stamina to advance Ireland’s cause.
Setting out a narrative that would be repeated throughout his campaign, he continued:
My life’s journey has brought me from the home of my widowed mother in Inchicore to the Dáil, the Mansion House and Brussels. From the President’s study, which I visited many times as a minister, the floodlights of CIE works, where I worked as a boy, are visible as a clear landmark. If I am elected President this landmark shall be a daily reminder of where I came from and that my sworn duty is to serve the welfare of the people as well as to uphold the Constitution and the law.
Though he had contested the leadership of Fine Gael in 2002 with Kenny, now Taoiseach, in the leadership heave before the 2011 general election Mitchell threw his support behind Kenny and was also credited with corralling the support of all four Fine Gael MEPs.
Mitchell had an otherwise perfect and formidable record of winning political contests. During a career of thirty-one years he had won fourteen elections: eight general elections, to retain his seat, four local elections and two European elections. This meant that on average he was on the hustings every two years. He had also campaigned as director of elections in referendum campaigns and in by-elections.
The first member of the Fine Gael parliamentary party to offer public support for Mitchell’s candidacy was Catherine Byrne, a Dublin South-Central TD who inherited her seat from him.
Meanwhile, Pat Cox moved swiftly. He had been in continuous contact with senior members of the party, and when told of Mitchell’s decision to run he confirmed that he was willing to do what was necessary to secure the nomination, namely to join Fine Gael. It was an audacious political parachute for a former member of Fianna Fáil and unsuccessful local election candidate for the party in 1979, a staunch ally of the former minister Des O’Malley and a founding member of the Progressive Democrats.
Cox had initially mused out loud about whether he would allow his name go forward for a nomination. The seeming arrogance of his comments, which gave the impression that all the party had to do was to convince him to run under its standard, annoyed long-standing Fine Gael members, and also suggested that he had a ‘done deal’ with Mount Street.
Cox had an impressive national and international CV, but he was politically promiscuous, having served three times as an MEP, twice for the Progressive Democrats and finally as an independent. In 2002 he was elected president of the European Parliament and in 2009 he campaigned for the Fianna Fáil MEP Eoin Ryan in Dublin, who lost his seat.
In the run-up to the general election, with opinion polls predicting a Fine Gael victory, Cox volunteered his services to Fine Gael. There he helped put together a plan of action for the first hundred days of office—a significant plan that would grant the party credibility as it took office for the first time in more than a decade—aimed at enthusing the social partners, the electorate and, increasingly significant, Europe. The first hundred days in office of any political party had become a diary-marking for political and specialist correspondents.
In the cosy cockpit of planning for a future electoral endorsement in the Fine Gael offices in Leinster House, and in the nearby head office in Mount Street, it would be frequently suggested to Cox that he might make the leap into constituency politics and become a candidate. But this was not on his agenda. However, his service would obviously require subsequent recognition. In a statement issued on 7 June, Cox said:
I am informed that having stood as a candidate for Dáil Éireann and the European Parliament ‘other than as a Fine Gael candidate’ requires that the question of party membership ‘shall not be considered without the approval in writing of the Executive Council’ … I have written to the General Secretary of Fine Gael, Mr Tom Curran, requesting such written approval. Pending the result of these deliberations I have no further comment to make at this time.
Then he went on a previously arranged holiday for a week to walk part of the ancient St James pilgrimage trail to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
Questioned on a visit to Cork, Enda Kenny said he was not backing any of his party’s three declared candidates.
Clearly the opportunity for Fine Gael here is stronger than it used to be—put it that way. And obviously the units of the party will decide by vote who our chosen candidate will be. What I want is a candidate who will win.
Kenny’s public statement of non-endorsement came after Mitchell had demanded the leader’s neutrality in the contest.
On Sunday 19 June the sixty-two members of the Labour Party electoral college piled into the wood-panelled Oak Room of the Mansion House, its walls decorated with the coats of arms of each of the city’s former Lord Mayors. The party’s thirty-seven TDs, twelve senators and three MEPs, together with the party’s Executive Board, prepared to vote.
That morning’s papers had tipped Michael D. Higgins to win but suggested also that Fergus Finlay was a realistic threat. Kathleen O’Meara was given little hope. It was reported that, when asked about her chances, having failed three times to win a Dáil seat, she responded: ‘So did Mary Robinson. There are many people who
run for election several times. Sometimes we have to play the right game.’
The party leader, Eamon Gilmore, opened the good-humoured convention with a pledge that ‘the candidate that we select will of course be a candidate for whom we all campaign.’
Finlay was first up and recited his CV before speaking about his vision for the office.
It’s easy to be cynical about the Presidency, but it is an office which is the exclusive property of the people, which costs the same to run each year as it costs to build just under three hundred yards of motorway and which can yield enormous benefits to the people.
The country needed a working President, he said, ‘a President whose sleeves are rolled up every day of the week.’ With some hint of premonition of the coming months, he said: ‘This contest will be tense and exciting. Careers will be made and damaged by the outcome.’
In his entertaining book about his previous time in Government, Snakes and Ladders, Finlay set out his failings as a vote-catcher and his election superstitions, which he had obviously overcome in putting his name forward for the presidential nomination.
I was doing what I always do during an election—living on coffee and cigarettes in head office. I have a superstition about elections—I’ve always been convinced that if I ask anyone for a vote we’ll lose the seat. In fifteen years in active politics, I never once knocked on a door to ask anyone to vote for the party. I couldn’t do it now to save my life.
Higgins asserted confidently that it is ‘possible to both possess a vision and at the same time achieve practical results,’ adding that his campaign would be about ‘building an inclusive citizenship in a creative society appropriate to a republic.’ He said that he hoped the campaign would allow the public to move ‘beyond recriminations’ about who caused the economic crisis to how the country could redefine itself according to its strengths.
