Presidential Election 2025

I should have answered your final question, though the answer is obvious.

The question facing President Hillery that night was whether the Dail could elect an alternative Government. Only Haughey could confirm to the President whether or not he could be elected Taoiseach - anyone else's opinion on that matter was mere hearsay. The President would look very foolish if he didn't get direct confirmation from Haughey before refusing a dissolution and if Haughey's bid to become Taoiseach came undone. Given the abiding bitterness between them, it would have been sufficient for Haughey to speak to the President's closest advisor but, one way or another, the Aras needed to hear from Haughey.

As I said in post 957

Why did Lenihan lie about the phone call in 1982? Lenihan looked like a shoo-in for the Aras because he was polling at 45% of first preferences. But he still needed to consolidate that support and win a decent share of transfers. 

Above all, like everything else in that era, this election was overshadowed by Haughey. Lenihan had to prove that he would not be Haughey stooge in the Aras (i.e. not continue to act like Haughey's Tánaiste). Lenihan understood that the calls he made to the Aras on Haughey's behalf in 1982 raised a fundamental question - would he as President exercise his most important prerogative i.e. refuse to dissolve the Dail if Haughey asked him after being defeated in the Dáil. So he lied about 1982 and got caught out by the tape. The Opposition, especially FG who laid this trap, made it a hanging offence and ever since there has been a weird notion that phone calls to the Aras are somehow verboten. There also even a whiff of lese-majeste about it.

Obviously, Lenihan couldn't explain these motives publicly so people just assumed he felt guilty about the phone call. And in the eyes of the Opposition, he was guilty of a heinous offence - being Haughey's sidekick.

The President has "absolute discretion" in refusing a dissolution but we have a perfect right to criticise his choice (especially now that Michael D. has politicised the Aras).

I think he should have reserved his decision that night in 1982 and sought clarity in the parliamentary chaos after Bruton's Budget collapse. At the very least, that would have shown he was willing to exercise his prerogative in the proper circumstances. Is the prerogative a dead letter if no President has even considered its use?

The situation was reversed later that year when Haughey's government was defeated. Hillery granted a dissolution to Charlie but Hillery would not have taken offence if Garret had rung the Aras to say he could form a government.

The relevant question now is - in what circumstances would the next President refuse a dissolution? No President has had a realistic option since 1982. Albert resigned rather than give Mary Robinson the choice in 1994 when a palace coup brought John Bruton and the Rainbow to power based on the flimsiest claims (Pat Rabbitte's "document …that will rock the foundations of this society to its very roots").

I doubt if the current Dáil could survive if it (i.e. Michael Lowry) withdrew support from the rotating-Taoiseach but during a two-term Presidency, there may well be the option to refuse a dissolution for some future Dáil and we should know how the candidates would approach this issue. I certainly wouldn't vote for any wilting violet who hid under a desk when the Leader of the Opposition rang up the Aras.

Haughey was backing his candidate so obviously he took the same (false) line and for the same reason - Lenihan needed to appear independent of Haughey.

Haughey was never going to say "Brian didn't call the Aras that night but I did because there was nothing wrong with doing so". That would be tantamount to saying "Brian is a minion I wouldn't trust to make a phone call but when he is Presdient, I'll have a hot line to the Aras" 😋

Au Contraire! Michael D. is our least popular President.

In the latest poll, he has an approval rating of just 64%. In contrast, Mary McAleese was on 92% approval in 2011 (astonishing considering that FF, the party which first nominated her, was imploding at the time) and Mary Robinson's ratings as President were also around 90%. I don't have polls for earlier Presidents but there was rarely any criticism of the incumbent.

Of course Michael D. is highly popular with his own crowd - Ralph McTell gig in the NCH 🤣

They love that he politicised the Presidency, discarding any inconvenient Constitutional convention (while we're debating a phone call in 1982!) but they will live to rue the day because eventually the dangerous precedents he set will open the door to someone very different, maybe even the person who will succeed him later this year.

But yeah, "interference with the President's independence" was the basic charge against Lenihan. For a phone call 8 years earlier that wasn't put through to the President. Those were the days, my friend!

And from the Mullahs!

Then he's in the wrong job. As the Constitution says:

 The executive power of the State in or in connection with its external relations shall in accordance with Article 28 of this Constitution be exercised by or on the authority of the Government.