THE PRESIDENTIAL bids of Senator David Norris and Dana Rosemary Scallon are in the hands of county councils meeting ahead of tomorrow’s noon deadline for nominations.
Mr Norris and Ms Scallon both need the support of two more councils. Eight councils are meeting today and one is meeting early tomorrow.
Mr Norris suffered an unexpected setback yesterday when South Dublin County Council voted by 12 to 11 not to support his nomination.
Six Fine Gael councillors, four from the Labour Party and two from Sinn Féin voted against Mr Norris while five Labour councillors, four from Fianna Fáil and two Independents voted for his nomination. There were three abstentions.
“It was very close, I wish the one vote had gone the other way but that’s local democracy,” Mr Norris said. “There will be another day. I believe I will get enough to get in.”
Earlier in the day he had won the backing of Laois County Council to add to the nomination he had already secured from Fingal.
However, he failed to win Carlow, losing out on the casting vote of the chairman after a tie. Instead Carlow County Council voted to back the nomination of Ms Scallon as did Roscommon County Council.
Limerick County Council yesterday formally gave its backing yesterday to Independent candidate Mary Davis who was already assured of a nomination.
Mr Norris will today take his case to Waterford and Dublin city councils and Cork County Council.
The Senator is regarded as having a strong chance of winning the backing of Waterford, which meets at lunchtime. If that happens he will need just one and, even if he loses Cork and Dublin city, he will have a final opportunity tomorrow morning when Kilkenny County Council meets at 8.30am.
The day began well for Mr Norris yesterday when he secured the support of his home county Laois by seven votes to four.
“My roots here are so deep I am particularly honoured,” said Mr Norris after the Laois decision.
Things did not go so as well for him in Carlow. The council was tied at five votes each way but the chairman, Thomas Kinsella of Fine Gael, gave his casting vote against the Trinity Senator.
The council then voted in favour of Ms Scallon’s nomination. Later, Roscommon County Council also voted to back Ms Scallon, taking her halfway to the necessary four local authorities. Roscommon voted 12 in favour of Ms Scallon, with 13 members abstaining.
Ms Scallon is in a strong position going into today’s votes. With two councils already committed to her cause she is regarded as almost certain of backing from Donegal which meets at 10am.
Her next meeting is in Westmeath at 2pm and even if she fails to secure a nomination there she can fall back on Longford, the first county to nominate her in 1997, Offaly, which meets at 2pm, or Cavan, which meets tonight.
Speaking after he secured the backing of Laois County Council, Mr Norris said again that he had no intention of publishing any further letters sent in 1997 seeking clemency for his former partner Ezra Nawi, who was convicted of statutory rape of a 15-year-old boy. “The issue has been dealt with,” he said.
Mr Norris said he wanted to move on and deal with the “real issues” confronting the country. He also said he believed the people of Ireland wanted someone like him who had come through difficult times to be president.
“I hope this isn’t going to be a dirty campaign. All this stuff came out and the people of Ireland, the opinion polls have shown, are intelligent enough to make up their own mind. I’m going to allow them to make up their own mind.”
Mr Norris’s bid to win a nomination through the Oireachtas route suffered a severe setback at the weekend when the election workers of South Tipperary Independent TD Mattie McGrath voted against nominating him. That left him stuck with just 18 TDs and Senators, two short of the number required for an Oireachtas nomination.
