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 !!!🙄🥲

Heather Humphreys is saying the Irish electorate didn’t understand last year’s referendum on removing reference to women in the home and amending the family article. Thank you for insulting my intelligence just because I didn’t vote the way you, Heather as Fine Gael’s Director of Elections for the referendums at the time, wanted me to. I won’t be voting for you. There was a teeny tiny chance I might have been swayed to vote for you as I am not sure about your 2 opponents. But now I definitely won’t vote for you.

That seems to be her general approach to disagreement - in the debate she said something about dealing with unrest about immigration by explaining to people that they're wrong. (Then again Connolly did the whole "it's actually only a tiny few who are making a lot of noise and anyway they've just been led astray". And I can't imagine Gavin saying anything more to the point either.)

Thank you HH for letting me know I'm too thick to understand referendum choices. Doncha just love being patronised by politicians who assume people who disagree with them are doing so because they are stupid.

I won't vote for HH as she was part of the FG government that should have stood up to Leo Varadkar when he broke the law but opted to keep silent and take the high salaries.

I watched the debate the other night, although I use the term 'debate' loosely. I thought CC was the strongest performer. Jim Gavin was incredibly stuff and his hand movements were irritating. HH didn't really engage enough and didn't seem to want to be there.

Thank you HH for letting me know I'm too thick to understand referendum choices. Doncha just love being patronised by politicians who assume people who disagree with them are doing so because they are stupid.

I won't vote for HH as she was part of the FG government that should have stood up to Leo Varadkar when he broke the law but opted to keep silent and take the high salaries.

I watched the debate the other night, although I use the term 'debate' loosely. I thought CC was the strongest performer. Jim Gavin was incredibly stuff and his hand movements were irritating. HH didn't really engage enough and didn't seem to want to be there.

“Thank you HH for letting me know I’m too thick to understand referendums choices. Don’t ya just love being patronised by politicians who assume people who disagree with them are doing so because they are stupid….”

Absolutely @Chulainn

As soon as I saw the headlines 'the public didn't understand...' which was a phrase from a longer piece, in the headline, I could already see it being seized on and people claiming that HH was calling the electorate stupid. Presumably that was exactly why that headline was written!
I hadn't foreseen the big letters and bold type though.

“Maybe people didn’t understand. Maybe we should’ve put in more groundwork. That’s the truth. Because it was confusing.”
She did not say the electorate was 'thick', she blames the government for an unclear and not well-thought-out referendum proposal.

There was an element of WTF are they on about? in the public reaction to the referendum proposals, but the 'no' vote was against the content not the wording.
HH blames the defeat on the government for not presenting the proposals clearly enough, she's wrong, and the fact that she still thinks that is a bad thing for her as a candidate.

But she did not saying that the electorate are stupid or thick, and you have to do a lot of reaching to even see that as an implication.

The level of debate isn't just set by the candidates, the public response plays a role too.

That's how I read it too.
She is partly right, the wording was vague in the Referendum.
But I think it was deliberately vague and they hoped that the voters would vote it in by using the 'progressive' card.

I think Jim Gavin s chances might have blown up, some party voters will still give him number 1 as lots of them will see nothing wrong will failing to return over €3000 to a tenant but that will enraged many. He might have saved it if he d just admitted to it and cleared it but the excuse of it being a stressful time and financial difficulties for the family...... What the bloody hell do you think it was like for your tenant?!

I think HH will win fwiw. The civil war parties are only nominally opposite one another now. Their transfers mostly won't go to Connolly but to each other. It could be worse I suppose. Nobody of Mickey Ds calibre but what can you expect.
Anyway CC is more useful in the Dáil.

Can't wait to see if mumsnet approves my post. All I did was link to an article about michael mcdowell saving me from myself 😃

So it is now a 2 horse race. Jim Gavin has pulled out

That's crazy, even less of a selection to choose from now.

FFS what a joke. He should never have been nominated to run and was going to come 3rd anyway so this saves a small amount of face! What a sad reflection on the state of how the country is run.

We have to chose between someone who walked with the Orange order in their parades and someone who hired an employee who was a member of an organisation who don't accept the good Friday agreement.

The whole thing is a farce.

Its certainly different.
I think it should be rerun.

Came on to say very similar to this ^^ what an absolute joke. It’s all just so embarrassing at this point.

Me too but I suppose that's not possible. Unless they all pull out (fingers crossed!:-) It would have been much better with Maria Steen and Gareth Sheridan in the mix too.

He'll still be on the ballot paper though. I wonder where his transfers will go.

Anyone know anything about a challenge to the election thats in the supreme court next week. Fingers crossed its true and succeeds. We are better than this.

Yes, I saw an article in the Irish times about that. Dr Cora Stack, a mathematician who was running for election brought a high court challenge to the nomination process over 'unlawful blocking' of candidates.

www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2025/09/24/academic-seeks-to-challenge-unlawful-nomination-process-for-presidential-election/

These are the details of who Catherine Connolly employed and gave free access to government buildings. Serious error of judgement, this wasn't a minor crime, no wonder Sinn Fein are supporting her election.

My feeling last week was that these three were a disgracefully inadequate selection and I'd vote for whichever looked most likely to have to resign in disgrace within a few months, leaving us with a government appointee, probably Bertie Ahern, who would be no better but would at least leave 'the people' with the excuse that we didn't vote for him.

I didn't expect it to happen before the scheduled election.

It's all a farce.
MM will be worried about his own position at this stage.
There's were a lot in FF who weren't happy at Gavin getting the nomination over those who had put in the time and always been loyal to the party. I think putting forward a celebrity candidate is quite insulting to the intelligence of the electorate and he should have learned his lesson after Grainne Seoige's poor showing.

What a shit show! It's just even more farcical now 😣

Surely Michéal Martin's role as leader of FF is untenable now.