Cavan man takes heart from early polls and says he may not even put up posters, writes GORDON DEEGAN
SHORTLY AFTER midday yesterday in a crowded O’Connell Square in Ennis, presidential hopeful Seán Gallagher made a beeline towards cycling legend Seán Kelly.
Sensing the unplanned photo opportunity, the Cavan man was almost immediately surrounded by a group of photographers anxious to record the chance encounter between the two.
Mr Gallagher was in Ennis on a walkabout as part of his nationwide “listening tour”, while Kelly was part of a 300-strong group of cyclists taking a break from their four-day charity Tour de Munster for Down Syndrome Ireland.
Shaking hands, the Tipperary man told the RTÉ Dragon's Denpanellist: "You'll join us for a few miles next year."
Accompanied by his wife, Trish, Mr Gallagher was in campaign mode: hugging children, shaking hands with townspeople, congratulating the cyclists and having his photo taken with a local garda.
A Red C Poll for Paddy Power during the week had placed Mr Gallagher just one percentage point behind Fine Gael candidate Gay Mitchell on 12 per cent.
In an interview before the walkabout in Ennis, Mr Gallagher said: “I’m encouraged by the poll considering that I am only now out meeting people”.
Mr Gallagher said he had met more than 10,000 people in 17 counties as part of the tour and was busy meeting more yesterday including business people, carers and farmers on a full diary day in Ennis.
He refused, however, to be drawn on the prospect of broadcaster Gay Byrne entering the campaign.
“There has been lots of speculation about people entering the race and for me, I am focused on my own campaign, meeting people around the country.”
Mr Gallagher is poised to run in the election having secured pledges of support from the required minimum number of county councils.
The youngest prospective candidate in the field at 49, Mr Gallagher described the presidency today as “a sleeves-rolled-up job”.
“The role of president in the past was not seen as very active. It needs to be put to work like every other organ of the State to put the country back on its feet.
“For me, my view of the presidency is that it is a sleeves-rolled-up job.”
The Government has imposed a spending cap on candidates of €750,000 in the campaign and Mr Gallagher said that the spend associated with campaigning to be president was “absolutely obscene”. He confirmed he was leaning towards the notion of not erecting any election posters.
Asked how he is going to finance his campaign, the businessman said: “It is very much like a start-up business. It will be low cost. It will be run on a very low budget . . . It is absolutely obscene that vast amounts of money are thrown towards campaigns to become president. There are enough avenues through the media to get your message across without spending lots of money.”
Mr Gallagher added: “I have really serious reservations about spending silly money on posters. I question in these times whether or not we should be spending money on posters, because that is where a lot of the money will be spent. To be wasting that money is offensive to people in terms of people being unable to pay their mortgages and being in negative equity. I would like to see that issue of posters debated amongst the candidates.”
The former member of the Fianna Fáil National Executive said his past association with the party “hasn’t come up on the ground at all . . . I’m standing as an independent. There are tens of thousands of people in Fianna Fáil. They are great people in Fianna Fáil as there are in every other political party and we need to stop demonising people for being voluntary members of a political party.”