Why does anyone put themselves forward for president apart from pure ego....

It doesn't matter the normal person on the street will see straight through it, though.

It's why Michael D got in.

Just like the Monk, Let them stand there at the end to see their face when they lose.

we re firmly in the age of the narcissist, they 'sell' a convincing story, a magnet for desperate people, be very aware folks, be very aware of the narcissist, theyre bullsh1tters underneath it all!

If they really want to influence the country, do it the proper way - go into politics. Do the hard yards, and dont be asking people to put them in a cushy number in the Aras where they will do f-all except welcome people on red carpets, do lots of fancy foreign trips and occasionally mouth off on topics of their choice. Wouldnt it be lovely to have all those servants.

The office of the President is politics. But saying that, I do see where you’re coming from - I used to think too the Áras wasn’t much more than a retirement home for politicians who had done nothing to piss off anyone else in politics. Then Mary Robinson was elected to the role and Jesus did the ceremonial robes come off! She transformed the role of the President of Ireland into one which it should always have been and represented Ireland with dignity and respect on the political world stage, many times upsetting the Government of Ireland because she wasn’t going to be reined in -

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/state-papers-mary-robinsons-take-on-presidency-put-politicians-and-government-officials-in-a-spin/42247704.html

Michael D has basically neutered the role of the President again, and now there are nothing but a rogues gallery of idiots hoping to be nominated, who appear to be more interested in turning the Áras into a frat house, much like the orangutan on the far side of the Atlantic 😒

That's the problem with this office, is the President is supposed to be a low key politically neutral position, you are supposed to take the highest office in the country and then fade into the backround for most of your term. That is the conundrum, how do you get a politician to keep their ego in check…all went well until we elected that disgrace of a woman Mary Robinson, she couldn't keep her ego in check, couldn't keep her mouth shut. She took the office and made it much more public, then she left the job early to take up a job at the UN, which was effectively like giving two fingers to the office and the Irish people she was supposed to represent…last I heard from this woman was she got a museum built in her own honour in her home town.

She set the standard, or lowered the standard of the office more like, which has left us with the most narcissist embarrassing morally corrupt President yet, these two, the darlings of Irish media of course, are the reason the elections attract the type we are seeing today…ego maniacs…if Robinson had managed to keep her ego in check, we wouldn't be seeing the likes of Tony Houlihan, McGregor, Flatley etc…place the blame when the blame should be placed.

We are probably the most backward electorate in the developed world…utterly clueless, we vote on personality more than any other nation, there isn't an ideological slither of paper between our political parties, we've elected out and out spoofers in the past so it shouldn't surprise anyone utter spoofers would run for office.

We are a joke of a nation, our Prime Minister doesn't even believe that the nation state should exist….and we elected him!! The most powerful person in this state is Von Der Leyden and not one of us voted for her, none of know what policies she last ran on, most of us have never seen her interviewed, and that's the way Paddy like's it…we haven't elected a single Anti EU politician to our parliament, probably the only country in the EU who hasn't. That is why populism hasn't taken hold here, one of the only countries in the developed world where we haven't seen it…we love ourselves too much! We have convinced ourselves we are better than everywhere else, despite the complete lack of evidence. Paddy is always at least a decade behind everyone else.

Salary and pension.

Any candidate that says otherwise is lying, IMO.

My advise to any young person is to get out of here especially young white irish men.

The best a young person can hope for is a life in a shed at the bottom of their parents garden. We have the worst housing crisis in the EU. We have an increasingly dangerous country with vicious criminal acts, that this country wouldn't normally see, occurring on a weekly basis…which IS going to get worse. That's before we get into the nuttery of Net Zero and other ridiculous social policies.

It's not a fair leap, it's what happens when you dull standards, you attract dullards.

We are in a mess. Our "stability" is an illusion, we are in the throws of the most damaging herd mentality we have ever engaged in, this is going to get a lot worse. Our smug/sancitimoneous/progressive class in our policitical/media/ngo class have done some damage this time.

The US/UK are ten years ahead of us…I'm willing to bet, our youth will be emigrating there again soon, they won't be coming here to this backward, radicalised s***hole.

sorry no, that absolute spoofer Sean Gallagher was inches away from getting elected until the brown envelope moment live on TV during the debate.

The Irish electorate are totally capable of electing a celebrity candidate only in it for themselves, we almost did it 14 years ago, and that was before people developed attention spans of 2.4 seconds thanks to social media.

The only thing that’s stopping in it is that most of the ego maniacs are being stopped by the nomination process, I read in the paper at the weekend that mvgtegor (purposefully misspelled) wants to challenge the nomination process in the courts. Unlikely to succeed but a lot would agree with him that any joker should be allowed to self nominate due to “democracy”

We are a joke of a nation, our Prime Minister

Prime Minister? Don't know many Irish people that call the Taoiseach that.

My advise to any young person is to get out of here especially young white irish men.

Oh ye, the poor young white Irish men, they're the ones suffering hardship in the world. Plenty of other threads for your xenophobic nonsense.

I think this is why political party involvement is needed they seek out someone and ask them rather then them coming up with the notion themselves…