To those who say there will be no more than three or four candidates in this year’s presidential election, recent political history would say otherwise.
There were six candidates in 2018, seven in 2011, and five in 1997. Of those, a cumulative 10 candidates have come through an alternative route to nomination – by each getting the backing of four of the State’s 31 councils, rather than the support of 20 TDs and Senators.
As nominations open for the 2025 election, it is certain there will be a Fine Gael candidate (Heather Humphreys), a Fianna Fáil candidate (either Jim Gavin or Billy Kelleher), and a united left candidate (Catherine Connolly) who is supported by Labour, the Social Democrats and People Before Profit.
The only overhang relates to Sinn Féin. In the next 10 days or so the party will decide whether it will run its own candidate (as yet unnamed) or back Connolly. If it does run its own candidate, it will mean that all four candidates have been nominated in the conventional way, with the support of 20 Oireachtas members.
RM Block
Is there a path to a nomination via the Oireachtas route open to anybody else? Theoretically there is, with a record 234 TDs and Senators in Leinster House. However, when you subtract the big party blocs from the equation (Fianna Fáil has 67 Oireachtas members; Fine Gael has 55; and Sinn Féin has 44), the horizons become more limited for a presidential hopeful.
There are slightly more than 30 Oireachtas members who are Independent or who belong to micro-parties. Within that group there is a significant body of politicians who would be seen as morally conservative, and centre, or centre-right, in their disposition.
Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín spent a considerable time this summer trying to form a caucus of individuals to support an agreed candidate, but mustered only eight backers, well short of the threshold.
Others have been trying this route. In recent months, Declan Ganley, the businessman and founder of the defunct Eurosceptic Libertas party, has been contacting non-aligned TDs and Senators hoping to secure their support.
On Wednesday, the conservative and anti-abortion campaigner Maria Steen also announced her candidacy. Aontú immediately posted that it would support her, but Tóibín accepted it would be a very tall order for her to navigate her way to a nomination through the Oireachtas.
To get a nomination, a non-aligned candidate will have to secure the votes of the two Aontú TDs, the four Independent Ireland TDs and all the Independents who supported the Government – Sean Canney, Noel Grealish, Marian Harkin, Michael Lowry, Barry Heneghan, Gillian Toole, Michael Healy-Rae and Kevin Boxer Moran, as well as Mattie McGrath and Carol Nolan.
In addition, they would need the support of at least four Independent Senators. Two of those, Ronán Mullen and Sharon Keoghan, would be certainties, but Tóibín would then have to persuade Senators who do not share their political outlook. Independent Senator Gerard Craughwell would be amenable to hearing someone make out a case. When asked, he said: “I’m all for the competition and would only be too happy to listen to somebody looking for a nomination. If I can assist somebody, I will.”
If the person was not seen as primarily morally conservative – like Bob Geldof or Michael Flatley – there are other Independents Senators and TDs who might be willing to sign the papers. However, TDs and Senators say they have had no contact to date from Geldof, Flatley or indeed Conor McGregor.
An optimistic tot-up would bring a presidential hopeful close to the required 20 Oireachtas members in theory. But that is where the good news ends. Three Independent Ministers supporting the Government – Seán Canney, Noel Grealish and Michael Healy-Rae – have already declared they will be supporting Humphreys.
Healy-Rae signed nomination papers for Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness in 2011, but did not vote for him. He said on Wednesday that it was an important distinction. “McGuinness had political pedigree. In life you earn your stripes. You need a person who is used to the political system in the world we are living in.”
He said that is why he nominated McGuinness then, and he would not be nominating anyone this time, because those looking for nominations don’t have sufficient political experience. Grealish offers the same sentiment, but is more blunt. “You can take it I will not be signing nomination papers for anybody,” he said.
Michael Fitzmaurice of Independent Ireland has crunched the numbers and says there is not a hope any hopefuls can reach the nomination threshold. “When you take Grealish and Healy-Rae out, you won’t achieve the 20. A few of the hopefuls rang me a month or two ago and I said, ‘Do the maths, you’ll get 14 or 15 tops’.”
Tóibin is still sanguine: “I’m going to give it one more go. We are going to phone all the rest of the TDs and Senators that did not come back to us and say, ‘This is do or die, we either exercise this constitutional right or we just stay quiet’,” he says.
He concedes, however, it’s an uphill task.
While it involves a lot of travelling, the council route provides an easier path. Independents Gareth Sheridan, Nick Delehanty and Joanna Donnelly are each trying to secure four nominations in this way, with Steen likely to follow their lead. The Irish Times has spoken to the chairs of more than 20 councils, and all confirm they will hold special meetings to hear pitches from candidates. Many are members of the bigger parties, and indicate they will not consider themselves “whipped” to block candidates. “I do believe in the democratic process,” said a Fine Gael chair. “We take it seriously. If somebody has support and seems reasonable, we will support as much as we can.”
What bigger parties have done in the past is abstain. Fine Gael councillors in Mayo and Kerry abstained in 2011 to allow Mary Davis get a nomination, despite Gay Mitchell being the party’s candidate. There are numerous other examples of this occurring.
Paddy Farrell, the Fianna Fáil chair of Leitrim County Council, said that abstention is a tool that could be used when Leitrim decides later this month. He said some of his party colleagues were not happy that they had no say in selecting Fianna Fáil’s candidate. His sentiments were echoed by a party colleague, Dónal Gilroy, chair of Sligo County Council. What happened to one-member-one-vote? he asked rhetorically, saying that councillors take the explicit power given to local authorities very seriously indeed.
Back in 2011, in a protracted process, David Norris failed to get 20 Oireachtas members to back his nomination. He then belatedly turned to the local authorities. On the very last day, and with the clock ticking against him, he secured the support of Dublin City and Waterford. He was the fourth candidate to gain a nomination this way.
Ironically, it was rival candidate Michael D Higgins of Labour who ensured Norris got across the line.
He wrote to Labour councillors on Dublin City Council saying the nomination rules were outdated. He asked his colleagues “not to obstruct the entrance of David Norris as a candidate into the field”.
In the event, 30 councillors supported senator Norris, six voted against him and 11 abstained.
