Presidential Election 2025

yes of course but the government have now lost the ability to rein in a president who exceeds the role.

Future Presidents will be quick to assert the freedom that Michael D. has been given and an outsider may relish a run-in with the Taoiseach who has wilted before Michael D.

Whoever said the President had to be an insider? Of course, nominations are in the gift of Oireachtas members and County Councils but outsiders have been nominated for every Presidential election since 1997. One of them came within days of being elected.

Your capacity for constitutional creativity is breathtaking, Francie. This morning you gave Presidents carte blanche to behave as they will. Now you say it's the government which defines what is unconstitutional "when taking the President to task".

God help us all.

OK, Francie. I did suggest this morning that you consider our constitutional framework - legislative, executive and judicial. So which branch of government would decide if MDH acted unconstitutionally?

I never said he had been "deemed unconstitutional". And I have never been convicted of drink driving.

But I do say MDH has not abided by his constitutional role.

I have stated it clearly, no inference is required. MDH has exceeded his constitutional role.

Of course there is no specific provision in the Constitution forbidding the President from, say, praising a deceased dictator or writing fawning letters to the Ayatollahs. And people love to hear the Government getting the rough edge of the President's tongue. Constitutions are not like tax laws which spell out all eventualities on the assumption that well-paid advisers will look for loopholes. Constitutions provide a legal framework with checks and balances on the power of each branch of government so that the various institutions will operate together.

Our President is designed to be a figurehead within our system i.e. the President takes precedence over all others and exercises a wide range of powers and functions but - and here's the kicker - all those powers and functions can only be exercised on the say-so of the Government (with a few very limited exceptions).

This does not mean the President is redundant. The President is a guarantor of the constitutional order. No Bill becomes law without the President's signature. The President can refer any Bill to the Supreme Court to test its constitutionality. The President appoints the Taoiseach and Ministers after their election by the Dáil. All of this have been done efficiently and without controversy because, despite the disgraceful recent scenes in the Dáil, we have been fortunate not to face the sort of constitutional crisis which destroyed many European democracies at the very time when we were establishing ours with a popularly elected Head of State replacing a foreign monarch.

All previous Presidents, including the two immediate predecessors who expanded their role as far as they could, understood that they shouldn't criticise the Government or run their own foreign policy. The only Presidential crisis in our history arose when the Minister for Defence criticised President O Dalaigh when speaking to Army Officers. This is the opposite of today's situation but Paddy Hillery spent 14 years in purdah in the Áras to atone for that mess.

MDH, like Donald Trump, has ridden roughshod over long-established constitutional conventions but almost no one in the Irish media will call Michael D. out although they love nothing better than to print raiméis about Trump and the US Constitution.

You think Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese were free to criticise the Government (and foreign Governments) while they were in the Áras. But that nonetheless they decided to keep schtum during their many years in office.

Contrary to everything they stood for before and after.

And without a word of explanation for their weird behaviour in office.

If you believe that, I can't help you, Francie.

Before SethBrundle jumps on me again, I will bring this back to the forthcoming election. The question now is - will any candidate this year say that MDH exceeded his constitutional role?

I would be amazed if any potential candidate has the gumption to stand up for the constitutional position at the price of alienating MDH supporters and promising, if elected, to restrict themselves to the constitutional role.

Even worse, I doubt if anyone nominating a candidate will insist that they promise to stick to the constitutional role. If, for the first time, we elect someone who says that as President they will be free to criticise the Government and to operate their own foreign policy, we will have chaos in our foreign relations and the makings of a constitutional crisis at home.

Mod: warning for discussing moderation in the thread.

As always, Francie, read what I wrote. I never said we have a constitutional crisis. I said and now repeat for your benefit-

If, for the first time, we elect someone who says that as President they will be free to criticise the Government and to operate their own foreign policy, we will have chaos in our foreign relations and the makings of a constitutional crisis at home.

To those who think this is a non-issue, I say - try to keep up. I am only spelling out what people in Government were saying privately and what they in exasperation are now saying publicly. Here's what FF's preferred Presidential candidate wrote in this week's Sindo to explain why he is not running. It's exactly what I'm saying here but couched in, well, Presidential language.

Firstly, in my view, the successful candidate should understand the delicate constitutional parameters and balance that are required. Overreach in executive powers should be no more tolerated than in the reverse. President Michael D Higgins would, I am sure, not tolerate any undermining of his exclusive competences by a government minister, and correctly so.

he has been afforded arguably a large degree of latitude by the elected governments of the day, who have taken a flexible approach to his criticism of government policy.

His approach might be popular at times, and some of his pointed statements I would personally agree with, but the question remains whether such statements should come from that office?

Such an approach might become problematic, in hindsight, if a president of a more extreme stripe is elected.

Do you think it's mere coincidence that the next day MDH proclaimed that he would not be silenced?

Hiberncis considers this to be "irrelevant and boring noise" because he has nothing to offer. Others may think I'm a troll from the FF Press Office. But I've made my points and I'll leave others to figure it out for themselves.

https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/barry-andrews-what-we-need-from-the-next-president-and-why-i-wont-be-running-for-the-aras/a1075292156.html

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025/06/15/president-higgins-has-no-intention-of-remaining-silent-while-democracy-under-threat/