The Presidential Election 2025

[deeahgwitch]

Your thoughts.
i’m in the ABB camp.
I accept he did a great job re The Good Friday Agreement but his government pre the economic crash !!!🙄🥲

Now I can see why people are flying their Irish flags, definitely a corrupt government!!

I agree.

Maria Steen and her handbags would look good on the world stage. The system is complex...I m amazed so many people got through it previously

I don’t know where you live but I don’t think that’s the situation at all. I think in many areas it will go against him . I don’t know anyone personally who is big into gas

I am inclined to think Humphreys will get in. She will benefit more from transfers than Connolly.
I don't think the GAA connection will benefit Gavin hugely. Anyone but Dublin was a motto for a lot of football fans outside of Dublin 🤣.
I am disappointed Steen and Sheridan didn't make the ballot. It would have been far more interesting.
I think there was a nervousness that Steen would destroy the other candidates in debates and pick up a lot of protest votes. I think she would have done a lot better than the 3% indicated in recent polls. Though it's hard to know which direction her transfers would have gone.

Bit if a hit job by Audrey Carville on Catherine Connolly. Incessantly banging on about Hamas. It was like a flashback to the 80s and Section 31. When people from one party were asked to condemn this or that . But never people from another section of society. You just use up the available airtime having planted the suspicion that the interviewee is a terrorist.

But that might backfire too.

Totally irrelevant but a good hairdresser might be good. Image is important when forrin dignitaries arrive. Yes I know that's shallow.
But in a who do I want to represent me it matters more than it should.

Both parties are running candidates. It is quite usual to apply the whip in this case. Any councillor who felt it was wrong was quite entitled to support an independent but they'd have lost their party affiliation. That's democracy in action. I watched the Dublin City Council meeting, the majority of the candidates hadn't a clue what the role of president involved but that's an aside. There are 63 councillors on DCC, a candidate needed 32 votes to secure a nomination, FF/FG only hold 19 seats, they didn't stop an independent from running. I'm fairly sure PBP, Sinn Fein etc have applied the whip now they've supported a candidate but they just didn't announce it.
Edited I was supposed to quote the PP who said the govt acted undemocratically by applying the whip to its councillors

I assume this is irony? It's just that these days, there's always the possibility that people are serious when they say things like this!

Aaand the poxy posters were already climbing the lampposts around here yesterday. Flipping quick off the mark. There won't be a shred of lamppost or railing left after the weekend and we shall get the next month of seeing their mugs gawping down at us all around.

Please God there won't be any poxy party leader posters this time round though

There are 63 councillors on DCC, a candidate needed 32 votes to secure a nomination, FF/FG only hold 19 seats, they didn't stop an independent from running.

But the parties could have nominated a candidate through the Oireachtas anyway, they didn't need to rely on councils, is that right?

I'm wondering if it would have been better for FF & FG if they had allowed their councillors or TDs to nominate a few other candidates. As it is, the left and much of the anti-establishment vote is concentrated in Connolly. Surprising as it is to me, I've actually seen a good few Steen supporters say they're going to vote Connolly now.

I think she has a much better chance than she'd have had with a few more candidates. For FF, I think it's possible that people who may have given Gavin a vote will opt for Humphreys because they'll be more voting against Connolly than for the candidate they prefer.

I think people are understandably annoyed at how the election has played out and how certain well-qualified candidates have been blocked from entering. It's dirty play by some politicians. Michael McDowell for example didn't sign Maria Steen's papers because he thought if she got in she'd win, but imo the people should be given the chance to decide who they want, within reason, not Michael McDowell and his ilk.
I don't think people feel they are being listened to and that's the problem. My 80 year old MIL is the most gentile, mild mannered person and even she in incensed at the treatment of Maria Steen and considering taking to the streets in protest!

It's a disgrace. I already knew that if Catherine Connolly got nominated that she would get my 1 but the other two candidates are not aligned with what I want in an Uachtarán.

Micheal and the Marys set the bar quite high.

They haven't been blocked. They didn't make the criteria. Noone stopped them putting themselves forward, they were heard. Yes, the decision lies with elected representatives but that's the Constitution.

Michael McDowell has made no comment on Maria Steen so I don't know how people know what he was thinking.

Maria Steen is an excellent speaker, a very clever woman and at least understands the limit of the president's powers but she has had no public role ever. She represents a niche body. She gave four whole weeks of her time to her effort to be president. If she was serious, she'd have started her campaign after the referendums last year.

No one is owed a shot at the presidency. If people felt so strongly about changing Irish society, they'd stand as councillors, TDs, senators even. They're the ones with power.

I have reservations about Catherine Connolly but no one can doubt her willingness to serve her electorate, to try make a difference.

Heather Humphreys, wouldn't be my choice at all, but still she was a public representative.

Jim Gavin isn't just a retired GAA manager, he had a serious career in the Air Corp, he was a policy maker.

Gavin Sheridan, Maria Steen have not done anything to compare with the three above.

Well then you vote for Catherine. All the candidates are not required to be aligned with everyone's idea of the president. We get to pick the one we feel represents us and hope enough other people feel the same way. I've never voted FF or FG, and yet they are in government each time. I have a vote in the NUI panel in the Seanad, my candidate has never gotten in there either. That's democracy unfortunately. Majority wins.

Honestly, I am not sure if Maria Steen starting her campaign earlier would have made a jot of difference to getting on the ticket. Obviously there was some party whip situations going on, both the ones we know about and I'd imagine some we didn't. Yes, I know that alone would not have been a barrier to her in all cases, especially where Co.Co's were not heavily made up of the above mentioned parties.

However, there does appear to have been a great deal of apathy in the councils with regards the independent candidates. What the cause(s) of this was, one can only speculate. However, having heard how the DCC meeting played out, the 'calibre' of most of the potential candidates may not have helped the small few who actually stood a chance. I mean sitting listening to some of their pitches would probably have turned some councillors brains off and made them feel like 'let's just not bother if this is the calibre of the people we have to choose from', thus leading the couple of half decent options to be lumped in and lose out.

Now I am not saying this was the case (I don't have any way to prove this), nor am I saying it is the only reason, but I am speculating that it may have been one.

If you add in the (what I would call) 'joke' candidate suggestions like McGregor, Flatley et al, it makes somewhat a mockery of the whole thing. Possibly leading councils to feel apathetic about the whole thing.

That's just the stream of consciousness going on in my brain at the moment.

I would like to see some changes to how an individual gets to set themselves up as a candidate for President, a set of qualifications perhaps, the very least of which is understanding that it is not a role that can effect legal changes. The President is there to legitimise law not to make it.

Actually thinking back to the local elections, I'd also set a test for wannabe councillors too. There was an idiot who thought he could change government policy on immigration and the EU and promised to do so in his campaign 🙄

Even for the national elections. Remember the numpty with the 'Make Crime Illegal' poster!!! I mean seriously, if you are that stupid you should not be allowed to run for a place in the government of the country.

Actually,I think a lot of people would relate to that poster.
People are seeing it more and more, especially small businesses where there's no fear of any consequences for those who shoplift or engage in anti social behavior.
In fact Prime Time had a special on this very topic just this week.

Won't lie, was kinda thinking that as I wrote that post!!

Good article on how Maria Steen and others were blocked from the election.
https://gript.ie/why-did-michael-mcdowell-block-maria-steen/

It seems that McDowell thought Steen would win and didn't think this was a good thing for the country. So he effectively blocked the voters from being given the opportunity to make that decision
That's a very arrogant position to take. Technically he was within his rights but a very condescending attitude towards the intelligence of the public.

Yes, the people should've been given the chance to decide for themselves. We were robbed of the opportunity to hear what she had to say because they know she talks sense and the government wouldn't want anyone hearing a bit of sanity for once!

Not enough people thought Maria Steen was candidate material. If enough people had thought that, she'd be on the ballot paper. That's how it works.

We were robbed of the opportunity to hear what she had to say
Actually no, nobody was robbed of finding out about Maria Steen and her opinions.
We heard what she had to say in the past when she opposed abortion rights and marriage equality, and anybody could - and still can - access her website to read what she has to say in 2025.

Michael McDowell didn't think she would make a good president, so he declined to sign the papers nominating her for the post which he didn't think she would carry out well. Why on earth would he nominate someone he thought wasn't suitable for the job? What makes her think he should have done so? He used his judgement and declined to nominate her. What's wrong with that?

Maria Steen isn't doing herself any favours by all this 'we wuz robbed' talk - not enough people liked her or her policies. Nobody owed her their signature.

But of course, everything has to be a conspiracy🙄

There are a number of issues people have with McDowell's behaviour.
There had been reports that he wasn't taking calls from Steen from the beginning, despite having worked with her in the past and knowing her socially and professionally. He asked her in the past to work with him campaign for a no/no vote in the 2024 Referendum.
In today's Independent it's reported that Steen phoned him on September 1st, 12th, 25th,29th and 24th.
He didn't take the calls. Steen texted him after the first call asking if he would be available to listen to her. He texted back that he wouldn't be making a decision until he knew the full range of candidates, neither ruling himself in or out of nominating her.
Steen never heard from him again.
He texted her husband 36 hours before the deadline saying he wouldn't be supporting her.
He has since said he never intended to nominate her.
It's was pretty as shabby behaviour.
He has also said that he thought she could have won the election. She could only have done that by winning the majority of the votes.
But he says
"My own judgement on whether that would be the best outcome was decisive"
If he felt the majority of voters supported her,then McDowell was wrong to deny them that right in my opinion.