Fingal County Council has voted by a large margin not to endorse any candidate for the presidential election.
The council rejected a resolution on Friday night to give a nomination to entrepreneur Gareth Sheridan by 18 votes to seven, with five abstentions.
Mr Sheridan had earlier won a preliminary vote against conservative commentator Maria Steen after both had addressed the council. Seven councillors voted in favour of Mr Sheridan with four voting for Ms Steen. There were 19 abstentions.
Mr Sheridan was supported by a number of Independent councillors, with Aontú and two Independents backing Ms Steen. Fine Gael and Labour councillors voted against the resolution in a bloc, with members of other parties also opposing the nomination or abstaining.
RM Block
Fingal has become the third of the 31 local authorities to decide not to endorse a candidate after Mayo and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown councils also decided to refrain.
A person who is formally nominated by four councils is entitled to be a candidate in the election.
Mr Sheridan (36) told councillors in his submission that Fingal could make history by nominating the youngest candidate.
He said he wanted to give voters a wider choice of candidate “beyond the long list of politicians serving and retiring in Leinster House”.
It would be wrong not to widen the choice that voters have on October 24th, he said.
Mr Sheridan said Fianna Fáil candidate Jim Gavin had no political experience but brought an exceptional life experience as did he.
Speaking of Nutriband, the healthcare company he founded, he said: “I did not get cheered on in Croke Park but I took a college idea which ended up ringing the bell of the Nasdaq [stock exchange] in New York.
From Terenure in Dublin, Mr Sheridan said he wanted to represent a generation of Irish people who could not afford to own their own home, and were forced to rent or live with their parents, or emigrate.
Ms Steen told councillors people disagreed with some of her views but referred to an Irish Times column by Fintan O’Toole where he had written that she had generally conducted herself politely and treated opponents with civility.
“I do not believe in ad hominem attack and saying unkind things in the heat of the debate,” she said.
Ms Steen said she had “no aspiration to conduct my own foreign policy from the Phoenix Park”.
Accepting she was on the losing side of the two referendums (marriage equality and abortion), she said so too was Fine Gael presidential candidate Heather Humphreys. She pointed out that Ms Humphreys had been the Fine Gael director of elections for the family and care referendums.
Ms Steen criticised the decision by Simon Harris to direct Fine Gael councillors to vote against nominations at local authority level, describing it as undemocratic.
In respect of her conservative views Ms Steen said that people might not agree with her. “You know my values. You know what I stand for. I am exactly what I look like.”
In relation to social issues, she said she had worked with “wonderful women” during the course of the 2024 family and care referendums who were on “the other side of the abortion debate in 2018″.
“This was an opportunity for healing,” she said, saying the result of the referendum was a landmark moment.
More than 30 members of the 40-member council asked questions with many focusing on Ms Steen’s views on same-sex marriage, abortion, divorce, assisted dying and surrogacy. Several councillors including Jimmy Guerin (Ind), John Smyth (Sinn Féin) and Mark Boland (Labour) asked Ms Steen to define a family and asked if it included same-sex and other families.
In response to those questions, Ms Steen said that as a democrat she fully accepted the outcome of both referendums.
