John Hume should not become President of Ireland. Not for his sake, nor for the sake of the Presidency of Ireland. As is widely recognised (outside the unionist community), John Hume's contribution to peace and a settlement in Northern Ireland has been immense. And over an extraordinary period. He was a bulwark against a further descent into violence in the worst of times. He was the voice of passionate reason on the nationalist side throughout. He was the crucial bridge, which brought the republican movement over from the wilderness of rebellion into the terrain of democracy - a process not yet complete of course.
He was central to all the important developments in Northern Ireland over the last 25 years: the Sunningdale Agreement, the Anglo-Irish Agreement and the Downing Street Declaration. John Hume's contribution to the peace process was not that he single-handedly persuaded the republican movement to move away from the "armed struggle". That was entirely the achievement of Gerry Adams. But Hume's role was crucial in two other ways.
His stature nationally and internationally enabled him to provide indirect contact for republicans with the Irish and British governments and with the American administration. And those indirect contacts were crucial in the lead-up to the first ceasefire and in the July 20th ceasefire.
The other role was even more important. Over several years, Hume devised a strategy for the entrapment of republicans which may well have been an important factor in persuading them that the "armed struggle" was doomed.
The "armed struggle" was prosecuted to establish the right of the Irish people to national self-determination. Hume's strategy was to devise a means for the Irish people to exercise national self-determination through a referendum held in the two parts of Ireland on the same day and on the same question, namely, a settlement to the Northern Ireland problem.
His plan was to secure an agreement between the two governments and the Northern Ireland constitutional parties and to have this submitted to an all-Ireland referendum. If the settlement were endorsed in such a referendum, then that would represent the exercise of national self-determination, thereby cutting the ideological ground from under the republican movement. As part of this strategy, he persuaded the British government to declare that it had no selfish, strategic or economic interest in remaining involved in Ireland.
Had it come off it would have greatly undermined Sinn Fein and the IRA, and the prospect of its working must have been a factor in influencing the outcome of the deliberations of the republican movement.
John Hume is no longer indispensable to the Northern Ireland peace process. He has played his part in bringing peace about. The necessary role he played in that compromised his capacity to be a reconciler between the two communities in the North - perhaps unavoidably, he was seen by the unionist community to get too close to the IRA.
So, it is not because he is indispensable to the peace process that he should not become President. It is for another reason. It is because temperamentally he is unsuited to the office.
Probably because of the huge strains that the Northern situation has imposed upon him over 28 years, John Hume has grown into himself. It is unusual nowadays for him to talk other than about himself for more than fleeting moments. This characteristic is much remarked upon by those who know him, though little commented upon in the media.
Also unremarked upon in the main, is the exasperation he provokes among his colleagues in the SDLP. As leader of the party, John Hume has acted often as a one-man-band, heedless of the views of colleagues and, more so, heedless of the necessity to involve them in his well-intentioned machinations.
His negotiations with Gerry Adams were a case in point. Nobody in the party knew fully what he was up to and none of them were given a copy of the Hume-Adams document of September 1993. Indeed, there were times in the run up to the August 1994 ceasefire when even the Irish Government believed that John Hume was on a solo run.
His stature here, in Europe and in North America, among the political elite, would be an important asset. His wife, Pat, would also be a huge asset. But those personal characteristics would be fatal flaws in a President, all the more so in the post-Robinson era.
The success of the Mary Robinson Presidency was, in large part, her openness to others throughout Ireland and abroad. The achievement of her Presidency was to give recognition to groups and individuals, marginalised otherwise by society. John Hume's personality, as it has evolved through the tortuous years since 1969, is not capable of the openness that the Presidency now requires, not capable of giving the recognition that has become the real power of the Presidency. Furthermore, the office of the Presidency would probably deepen his self-obsession and thereby lessen further his effectiveness.
It gives me no pleasure to write this, for I have been a friend of John Hume since 1969 and he has been personally generous to me very often during that period. But I believe he would be wrong for the Presidency and the Presidency would be wrong for him.
There is another reason for John Hume not being President. Were that to happen, it would come about without an election and Mary Robinson has proved that the effectiveness of the Presidency depends hugely on a popular mandate.
There is a strong case for the next President again being a woman. A woman being President again would balance the overwhelming male bias of the Oireachtas, the Government, and the judiciary. That, on its own, is perhaps good enough reason for the next President being Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, Mary Banotti, Avril Doyle, Maureen Gaffney, Margaret MacCurtain or even Dana.
But if it is to be a man, there is an outstanding candidate.
At first glance, he may appear to be from the tired, discredited political establishment. His waspish personality might also appear to preclude him.
But he has shown repeatedly throughout his career an ability to grow and to learn. He has the intellectual capacity to develop the Presidency beyond the point that Mary Robinson leaves it. In latter years, the waspish part of his personality has mellowed. He would be capable of using the "recognition" powers of the Presidency. And, like John Hume, he has unimpeachable integrity and a spouse who would be an enormous asset at Aras an Uachtarain.
This is Desmond O'Malley, the former leader of the Progressive Democrats and now its only backbench TD. And wouldn't it be a great campaign with him against Albert Reynolds?