Independent Ireland has said it is open to nominating someone to contest the upcoming presidential election but has not yet decided on whether it will seek to run one of its own members.
The election is due to be held in the autumn after the end of outgoing President Michael D Higgins’s second seven-year term.
Candidates need nominations from four city or county councils or at least 20 Oireachtas members to get on the ballot paper.
Independent Ireland has four TDs so if it were to run someone from the party they would require the support of 16 other TDs or Senators for them to get on the ballot paper.
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Party leader Michael Collins said Independent Ireland had “done a lot of talking” about its approach to the presidential election and this will continue.
He said he could not confirm at this point if Independent Ireland would seek to nominate someone from the party.
“There are a certain amount of candidates out there that would be brilliant presidents of this country,” said Mr Collins. However, he said running “comes at a cost and this party is a new party and you could be talking about hundreds of thousands of euro, so it’s quite ... wrong of us to say, ‘Yeah we’re going backing somebody.’”
Mr Collins said the party had a number of potential candidates in mind but “at the same time we haven’t said as of yet we’re backing any one candidate. Nobody has approached us properly either.”
He suggested there could be a joint approach by political parties and independent Oireachtas members to nominate an independent candidate.
Mr Collins said any candidate would have to be someone who is “hungry for the job” and “can deliver for the country”.
Independent Ireland separately announced on Tuesday that its Limerick County TD Richard O’Donoghue will be the chairman of the Oireachtas Budgetary Oversight Committee.
Another small party, Aontú – which has three Oireachtas members – has previously confirmed it is “actively considering” running a candidate in the election.
Party leader Peadar Tóibín said “this is a really important election” and “people want to see a president ... that represents their values”.
Mr Tóibín acknowledged it would be “difficult” to secure a nomination to get on the ballot paper. He said Aontú hoped to determine if there was a “pathway open to us” and to launch a candidate before the party’s ardfheis later this month.
Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin all have enough Oireachtas members to nominate their own candidates with Fine Gael leader Simon Harris already confirming it is his party’s intention to put forward a contender.
