Presidential Election 2025

No. She lost her only bid for a Dáil seat and was never a Senator so she could never have been offered even a Ministerial position and was never in the running for party leader (did Simon even pick up the phone to her the night FG made him Taoiseach? Phil Hogan was certainly in the loop).

Not a snowball's of being our first female Taoiseach. MLMD missed that boat in 2020 and I'm sorry to say that I don't see any likely candidate in the current Dáil.

But Mairead is a top-class media campaigner. Professional to her fingertips. Super well prepared. Big vote getter in EP elections. Should have got the top job in the EP. She won't step on any landmines (watch her side-step Gaza). But Sean Kelly could spoil her hopes once more - she missed out in 2011 to Gay Mitchell and FG are prone to missing an open goal.

John Lee says Mary Hanafin wants the FF nomination. There is little enthusiasm in the party but FF can't stand aside and they won't play second fiddle to FG. Cynthia Ní Mhurchú might be a better bet if she can bury her associations with RTE and Eurovision. "Stars" like Joe Duffy are non-runners now after the RTE scandals. Frances Black is "98%" out of the running.

It is absurd that we will have all our elections - local, EP, general and Presidential - within 16 months of each other (not the mention those useless referendums). Most likely, there'll be no nation-wide election until we repeat the dose in 2029, except for the Presidential, scheduled for 2032 which may be another shoo-in for the incumbent.

Apart from the absence of any electoral test to take the national temperature for the next five years, the parties blew their budgets in 2024 and will struggle to finance a run for the Aras.

https://extra.ie/2025/06/01/news/politics/mary-vs-cynthia

It's amazing how short Irish political memories are.

Howlin was in national politics for 40 years, a senior Minister in the 1990s, a key player in the FG/LAB Government and then leader of the Labour Party from 2016 - 2020. But even older voters would struggle to name a single fact about him except his career. As a Presidential candidate, he would be ham-strung by his role in the Troika austerity budgets.

I think Ivan is just stirring a Wexford pot.

Name a single retired politician who would be a viable Presidential candidate? Bertie will never be nominated, still less Mary Hanafin.The further from political office, the better for Presidential candidates ( Like the two Marys and Sean Gallagher until be was exposed as an FF'er)

Amazing that FG are seen as "the party to beat" in this race despite being hammered in the last two general elections and in the last competitive Presidential election.

Fine Gael got 21% in the general election but only one-third of those votes (7%) are dependable party voters, based on the Electoral Commission survey. As Gay Mitchell discovered, that's a weak foundation for a Presidential campaign. FG have a bigger problem - no one associated with the Troika/austerity era or with social conservatism (opposed same-sex marriage and/or repeal of the 8th.) will win the Áras. That's also why Blue Shirts have never won the Áras.

The successful candidate this year will minimise their association with the party nominating them while benefiting from their organisational capabilities. McGregor may have destroyed the chances of real "outsider" candidates. The local Councils have more Independents than ever - a majority in few cases - and most Councillors enjoyed nominating Presidential candidates (a rare political prerogative for them) but I think McGregor has single-handedly destroyed that openness among local politicians which was based on the valid principle of "let the people decide".

There is no obvious candidate anywhere. Which individual politician could win >50% of the votes based on their character or record?

FG will probably nominate Mairead McGuinness who is a very capable campaigner and proven vote winner but what are her achievements after a long career?

The Council route was barred in the distant past by the two major parties but their embargo was broken by Dana in 1997 and there have been many such nominations since. All local authorities got in on the act in 2018 and they nominated four candidates, one of whom got a larger share of the national vote than any party in the last general election.

The problem now is that, because no decent Councillor would go near Conor McGregor, Councils will be a reluctant to run the beauty pageants / primaries which we saw in 2018.

Peter Casey plans to run again and to spend the max. (€750K, an arbitrary limit set in 2011 when it bought a lot more). I think he will get the necessary nominations because party discipline won't apply - FG will nominate its own party candidate but the other parties will look to climb aboard any bandwagon with momentum. There are plenty of Councils where Independents are the largest grouping. Casey would do even better this year if he is the leading "anti-establishment" candidate though I can't see him winning.