Presidential Election 2025

Still time for a decent campaign but, yeah, I was expecting the major parties to get their act together after the Seanad elections etc. Maybe now that the Oireachtas committee Chairs are sorted.

FF is just stuck - nominating Bertie would destroy 15 years of Micheál's work rehabilitating the party. Cynthia is too much a novice - could the party of government not find anyone more experienced? Barry Andrews had a big name but never made the top table.

FG will nominate someone but kicked the can to June with some subcommittee to report. Mairead McGuinness is the obvious FG candidate but she gets no love in the party - Simon wanted Frances and now he will try to find an alternative.

SF were stung by Martin McGuinness's performance in 2011 - his 13.7% was well ahead of their general election result but he got almost no transfers. No SF candidate can aspire to the Aras unless that changes fundamentally.

Labour invited the SDs and Greens to talks about a joint candidate but the talks have got nowhere.

McDowell would run if someone would finance his campaign but he can't win because - he was leader of the PDs.

The road to the Aras is littered with political corpses. The winner scoops the big prize but everyone else is left in the dust - Brian Lenihan Sr., Austen Curry, Mary Banotti, Dana, David Norris, Sean Gallagher… the list is endless. Even Tom O'Higgins who almost unseated Dev in 1966 was sidelined to the judiciary (not bad, but still)

If this drags on to the summer, we'll have Kamala Harris deja vu.

Loads of time for ordinary punters but there is already fierce jockeying for position, especially in FG, the largest party which still thinks its brand could help a candidate, despite its disaster in 2011.

Fionnán Sheehan got a juicy bit of speculation - if Sean Kelly is elected, his vacant seat in the European Parliament would go to…..drum roll, please …. Senator…..Martin… Conway! https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/fionnan-sheahan-mairead-mcguinness-is-aras-papabile-but-she-only-preaches-to-the-partisan-so-far/a732119342.html

In Europe it is routine for seats in parliament to be in the gift of the party machine. But a bit of a shock for Irish voters.

No. Although the Lenihan campaign was engulfed in chaos after revelations about his calls to the Aras in 1982 (can anyone explain why such phone calls would be improper?), the net effect on the first count was roughly zero because Lenihan won sympathy for the way he was treated (i.e. knifed by Haughey).

He won 44% of first preferences - surely enough to win this year - but he lost because Austin Currie's transfers went 7:1 in favour of Robinson. This was a time when an FF/FG coalition was inconceivable because the two parties were distinct 😏 but I think (and Mary Robinson believes) that the decisive moment was P. Flynn's hamfisted intervention - questioning her family values as a career woman - which incensed Mná na hÉireann, including female FG supporters. Polls showed that women switched towards Robinson and away from Lenihan in the final stage of the campaign.

No Irish politician today will knowingly step on women's toes but there is still tremendous potential for verbal gaffes in a Presidential contest because the office is devoid of substance.

A blustering, question-dodging response - "well if you don't understand that…." "For obvious reasons….".

What's wrong with trying to influence the President in that situation? In fact, is it not essential for the President, if he is to exercise the only power within his absolute discretion, to establish if an alternative government could be established by the Dail which had only just been elected six months earlier? Who, other than the Leader of the Opposition, could better inform him about that possibility?

The alleged threats to the army officer only emerged after the Presidential election so it was not the cause of the controversy in 1990 and my question remains - why was it wrong for Lenihan to phone the Aras that night? He should have stuck to his original answer - the truth would have set him free!

Before you rush to answer, bear in mind that the three general elections in 1981/82 laid the basis for the most disastrous period in our recent political, economic and social history. What a pity we didn't have a Head of State who could have knocked heads together and told Charlie and Garret and the rest of them to sort things out!

Are you contradicting me by repeating my explanation? 🤯

As I said net effect of the Aras phone-calls fiasco on Lenihan's support was zero i.e. Lenihan was badly damaged initially but won back that support, mainly out of sympathy for his treatment.

I also said it was P. Flynn who tipped the scales to Robinson in the end. That was my main point!

As I said, he should have stuck with the truth. But the media and the Opposition claimed his offence was trying to phone the President that night. Why?