SOUTH MEP Brian Crowley is emerging as Fianna Fáil’s most likely candidate in next October’s presidential election, according to party sources.
Although party leader Micheál Martin refused to be drawn on the issue yesterday, Mr Crowley is understood to be increasingly viewed within Fianna Fáil as its only prominent public representative with a realistic chance of winning.
“Let’s face it, anybody who served in government from 1997 until the last election would be considered toxic by voters,” said a party source.
“That leaves Brian Crowley, who has a cross-party appeal and would be transfer-friendly,” he said.
Former taoiseach Bertie Ahern is privately being firmly ruled out as the party’s candidate.
First elected to the European Parliament for the South (formerly known as Munster) in 1994, Mr Crowley, from west Cork, has been a consistent poll-topper, even when the party’s support nationally was in decline.
While expressing an interest in the presidency, Mr Crowley has stressed that nominating a candidate was entirely a matter for the party.
Mr Martin said yesterday that Fianna Fáil would now consider its approach to the presidential election in the coming weeks, given that the Seanad elections were completed.
Speaking on the RTÉ Radio programme, This Week, he said the presidency was not just a Fianna Fáil issue.
“I think the office of president is above party politics. I think the key issue is that we support candidates, and facilitate the emergence of candidates, who could bring distinction to the office and the country,” he added.
Within Fianna Fáil, Senator Mary White, who was returned to the Seanad last week, has expressed an interest in the nomination in the past.
All parties are expected to have made a decision by June to enable candidates raise their profiles during the summer.
The Labour nomination, which is between party president Michael D Higgins and Barnardos chief executive Fergus Finlay, is likely to be decided this month. Mr Higgins is considered the strong favourite to win.
Within Fine Gael, MEPs Seán Kelly and Mairéad McGuinness have declared their interest in a nomination, but party insiders are not ruling out former taoiseach John Bruton.
Mr Bruton said recently that while the presidency was “an office that no citizen ought to refuse to consider”, he had “no ambitions in that direction”.
All parties see Independent Senator David Norris as a very strong candidate, if he secures a nomination with the support of 20 Oireachtas members or four local authorities.
Businessman Sean Gallagher, a judge in the RTÉ series Dragons’ Den, is considering seeking a nomination, while former European parliament president Pat Cox said in an RTÉ radio interview last month that he had not ruled out being a candidate.
Former Independent TD for Kerry South Jackie Healy-Rae, who expressed an interest, is not now expected to seek a nomination.
In a May Day statement yesterday, Mr Higgins said that as president he would act as patron of a series of “presidency seminars”.
These “would serve to stand back from the day-to-day dynamics of political and civil life and promote a plurality of discourses which might address such issues as how ethics can be restored and how trust can be rebuilt in our political and economic structures”, he said.
Mr Higgins added that one of his main priorities would be to promote and extensively develop diaspora business networks across the globe which would actively interface with Irish-based companies and seek to expose them to wider market share in foreign markets.
