Senator Ronan Mullen
At the time of writing it looks like it’s going to be President Connolly in Áras an Uachtaráin for the next seven years, though there may be a late surge of support for Heather Humphreys that could surprise us all.
Catherine Connolly is a sincere and principled person, I believe, and I have always found her calm and pleasant. She’s a thoughtful politician. The difficulty is, while I agree with her on some things, there is strong leftist ideology too and on some important issues she is very wrong. Since she’s authentic, I wonder whether she would use her position to advance views that in the end would be harmful.
Humphreys
Heather Humphreys I don’t know so well, though she has never been less than pleasant to me when we’ve met around Leinster House. She is now the Government-sponsored candidate, because of the Jim Gavin debacle. If elected, she will be determined not to rock the boat, diplomatically speaking, and some will see that as a plus. Being a party-whip person, her precise personal views on social issues are unknown, though she willingly signed up for some toxic FG and FF-led legislation in recent years.
In short, we are faced with a choice between two decent people who have nonetheless voted for bad things. In particular, they both opposed protection for children at the very beginning of their lives. It is difficult to look beyond that when choosing a Head of State.
It was all the more disappointing, too, that the best Jim Gavin could do at the start of his ill-fated presidential bid was to reply to the inevitable repeal question with a reassurance that he had voted ‘Yes’ in 2018. Gavin was the one person, coming from outside the Oireachtas, whose views were unknown. He could have kept his counsel – and it would have been a refreshing and credible approach from someone campaigning for the job of representing ALL the people of Ireland. Instead, we were left with the impression that anyone who voted to protect unborn children was unsuitable to represent the modern Irish State. How tragic. So much for respect for minorities.
FF and FG failed to put out inspiring people and they kept other interesting candidates off the ballot”
Against that background, the Maria Steen candidacy seemed like a refreshing antidote to the awful groupthink. Her campaign was quixotic in some ways. She entered the race late. There wasn’t a normal structure to her campaign, and no obvious campaign manager. She hadn’t time to build relationships with TDs, Senators, and Councillors. Too many were able to offer those of us promoting her the excuse that they had never met her, and some were only too happy to dodge the requested meeting as the nomination deadline loomed!
There is much to be learned, but much was achieved too. It’s a measure of Maria’s clarity of thought and speech, and of her sincerity, not only that she got so close to getting on the ballot, but that so many people regret her near miss.
Failed
Maria’s campaign aside, people should not forget that FF and FG failed to put out inspiring people and they kept other interesting candidates off the ballot. Why was it not possible to nominate Éamon Ó Cuív for example? There’s a man who has worked hard for people over the years, without a trace of scandal, and he has thought long and hard about constitutional questions too. If he was too ‘old hat’ for a party hierarchy obsessed with that elusive Dublin and youth vote, couldn’t they have nominated him along with some other candidate of a different profile? They had the numbers to nominate three or four, but not the imagination, nor the respect for their rank-and-file members nor for the public, to think outside the box. And they’ve landed themselves in a costly mess as a result. As one woman, a lifelong FF supporter, said to me: “There was no dignity in what they did.”
Some now say that the only way to punish the political establishment is to ‘spoil’ the vote. One option is to write in a name, American-style – for example that of Maria Steen. To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with that, if it best fits the message that the voter wants to send. All’s reasonable, bar obscenities, in my opinion. But, equally, if you can figure out which of the validly-nominated candidates you prefer, and if that preference outweighs your indignation about the way things have been handled, then that’s reasonable too. It’s a matter of prudential judgment.
***
Oireachtas Essay Competition 2025/26
Whatever people’s frustration with how our political system works, we might all agree that it’s better to live in a democracy. Especially when you consider the alternative. The Oireachtas Essay Competition, which I started back in 2022 with support from the then Ceann Comhairle, Seán Ó Fearghaíl, aims to get secondary school students to think about politics and to consider their own role, present and future, in our political system.
“It is vital,” Seán Ó Fearghaíl said when launching the Competition, “that we get people more interested in politics, and more people interested in politics.”
Three years on, with generous support from principal sponsors PTSB, and also education publishers CJ Fallon, law firm Mason Hayes Curran, ESB and An Post, we’re inviting students across the island, North and South, to take part in the 4th Oireachtas Essay Competition / Aiste an Oireachtais. We’re asking students in TY, 5th and 6th Year, or in A level or AS level, to compete for 6,000 euro in prizes by submitting essays on the theme ‘Is AI a threat to Democracy?’ or ‘Intleacht Shaorga – Bagairt ar an Daonlathas?’
Interested students must register on www.oireachtasessay.ie orwww.aisteanoireachtais.ie by November 7. They must then upload their essay by Friday, November 21.
Democracy matters. Please spread the word!