Independent Catherine Connolly stood over her record and her views during the final debate of the presidential election campaign last night, but said she understood that her role as president would be different to her role as politician.
A combative Heather Humphreys, the Fine Gael candidate who polls suggest is well behind in the race, sought to take on her opponent on number of issues, but failed to land any knockout blows.
Ms Connolly was fiercely critical of the United States and of European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and said she would “speak truth to power”. She also reiterated concerns about the “militarisation” of Europe.
Asked if she would share her criticism with the US president if she met him as Irish president, Ms Connolly said, “It obviously depends on how I’m meeting them, what the subject is.”
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“If it’s just a meet and greet, then I will meet and greet. If the discussion is genocide, that’s a completely different thing,” she said, adding that she doubted the issue of the genocide in Gaza would be on the agenda if she were meeting Donald Trump as President of Ireland.
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The debate largely went over ground that has become familiar in recent weeks.
Ms Humphreys apologised for her failure to support the family of Shane O’Farrell, a young man who died in her constituency after being struck by a motorist who should not have been on the road.
Ms Connolly insisted that she had not made any mistakes when she hired a person convicted of gun crimes to work in Leinster House. She declined to say if she had discussed what the former staff member had intended to do with the guns that she was convicted of possessing.
The candidates disagreed on the issue of foxhunting, but largely agreed on migration.
The early exchanges in the debate were dominated by the controversy over Ms Connolly’s work for banks in home repossession cases and the Fine Gael attacks on her, which have grown increasingly acrimonious in recent days.
Ms Connolly denied that she had avoided questions about her work for banks in repossession cases, claiming that she had a “duty of confidentiality”, but under questioning from Ms Humphreys, she confirmed that she had represented banks in cases where they sought repossession of homes.
She said the people responsible for evictions were previous governments, and complained that to “resort to his type of allegation is very low”.
At Leinster House yesterday morning Labour, the Social Democrats and the Greens all castigated Fine Gael and Heather Humphreys for their attacks on Ms Connolly’s work as a barrister in Galway when she was a councillor. Labour leader Ivana Bacik described the attacks as “nasty” and Trumpian.
Earlier, when asked on his way into Cabinet, Tánaiste and Fine Gael leader Simon Harris said he had no regrets about Fine Gael’s questioning of Ms Connolly, and the party’s controversial campaign video.
“No, what I’ve regret about is we have a presidential candidate who won’t answer questions,” Mr Harris said.
