Politics

What kind of president do voters want when Michael D Higgins' term ends and who might run?

Names bandied about include Mairead McGuinness, Heather Humphreys, Bertie Ahern, Tommy Tiernan and Conor McGregor

Michael D Higgins: will step down as President after two terms in office. Photograph: Stephen Davison/The Irish Times
Michael D Higgins: will step down as President after two terms in office. Photograph: Stephen Davison/The Irish Times
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Harry McGee
Thu Feb 06 2025 - 06:00

By a quirk of timing, 2024 was a year of three elections: general, European and local. This year will be a little less busy but there will be one national election in 2025 that may match the sparks of some of the contests of last year.

That will be the contest to choose the successor to President Michael D Higgins, who steps down after two terms in office. The election will be held in late autumn, with the inauguration in early November.

The foothills of the election have not yet been reached but already a plethora of names have appeared in the public realm as possible candidates for Áras an Uachtaráin. They range from well-established political names to left field, and wherever beyond that is.

“We have not even started to talk about it yet, even informally,” a senior Fianna Fáil figure says. “We are only drawing breath after the general election and government formation.”

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So what kind of president will voters seek after the 14-year term of President Higgins comes to an end?

“The expectation of people is different now because of Michael D,” says Eoin O’Malley, associate professor of political science at Dublin City University.

“He has pushed the boundary so far that it is now perceived as more political than it was in the past.”

Early talk within Fianna Fáil has centred on Éamon Ó Cuív, though he told The Irish Times he had no plans to put his name forward. Other names circulating in the wider Fianna Fáil family include former taoiseach Bertie Ahern and even newly-elected MEP Cynthia Ní Mhurchú.

Attending a student debate in TCD last week, Ahern said: “We’ll see. Some of the names around, you wouldn’t know who they are . . . But there’s some good people.”

Given the pattern of recent presidential elections, it is certain that Ahern would face intense and testing questioning over his personal finances, his experience with the planning tribunals and the economic crash of 2009.

Several senior TDs in the party were doubtful that he would stand.

“Would Bertie want to put himself through that?” asked one Minister. “The presidential election is a very naked race.”

Interestingly, all suggested separately that Fianna Fáil’s best gambit would be to run an agreed candidate with Fine Gael from outside the sphere of party politics.

O’Malley says that the person who often seems the ideal candidate just does not work out. He cites the example of the Chernobyl and anti-nuclear campaigner Adi Roche who stood in 1997.

“She seemed like a great candidate but it did not work out that way. Even if you have somebody who is in the public eye and has media experience, it does not prepare you for the intensity of the campaign,” he said.

The 2011 presidential race was a particularly brutal campaign for candidates, all of them facing tough and intrusive questions about their past actions.

Independent senator David Norris, the early front-runner, faced questions about having written a letter to the Israeli authorities seeking clemency for his former partner, a political activist in that country.

Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness was challenged about his IRA activities. Businessman and Dragons' Den reality TV star Seán Gallagher, who became the favourite, suffered a huge setback when during an RTÉ debate he struggled to answer questions about his involvement in past fundraising efforts on behalf of Fianna Fáil, and also searching questions about his own business.

“One of the things you did see with Michael D Higgins in 2011 is that he just stood back in the debates and barely got involved . . . That probably suited him quite well,” said O’Malley.

“It’s a tough election. Anybody who thinks about it needs to consider it very carefully because it could end up being a really unpleasant experience.”

[ Almost 900,000 people tuned in for the presidential debate ]

Fine Gael will be looking to break its duck of never having held the office. Three high-profile and popular members of the party have already been mentioned. They are former minister and MEP Frances Fitzgerald, former EU commissioner Mairéad McGuinness and the recently retired minister Heather Humphreys. None of the three has ruled themselves out but – conversely – they have not ruled themselves in.

Mairead McGuinness: the former European commissioner has proved a popular political figure and is a good communicator. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni/The Irish Times
Mairead McGuinness: the former European commissioner has proved a popular political figure and is a good communicator. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni/The Irish Times
Dana Rosemary Scallon at the launch of her presidential campaign in 1997 Photograph: Matt Kavanagh
Dana Rosemary Scallon at the launch of her presidential campaign in 1997 Photograph: Matt Kavanagh

It will be interesting to see which candidate emerges from the left. Labour leader Ivana Bacik has been pressing for an agreed common left platform candidate and has contacted the Social Democrats and the Green Party.

“There is such strong support for Michael D Higgins,” she said. “He has been a brilliant President and we would like to see somebody elected who would continue to represent those values.”

The three leaders will meet this week for exploratory talks. Bacik says a number of people have already approached her who are interested but she will not divulge their names. She also hints at a person who is not connected with any of the parties.

If that were the case, the candidate could not be Brendan Howlin or Aodhán Ó Riordáin of Labour, Soc Dem co-founder Róisín Shortall or former Green Party leader Eamon Ryan.

Ryan has already ruled it out.

“No, I won’t be running, I’m afraid,” Ryan told The Irish Times last week.

Ó Ríordáin had a similar response. “Nope,” said the Labour MEP when asked.

And what of Sinn Féin?

There has been talk that its candidate may be John Finucane, the North Belfast MP and son of Pat Finucane, the solicitor murdered by loyalist gunmen in 1989. Finucane is one of a post-Troubles generation of Sinn Féin politicians and could have wide appeal. But, similar to the other big parties, the presidential election has not yet become an issue view for Sinn Féin.

“I have not been part of a single conversation about it,” says a senior Sinn Féin TD. “We were badly stung the last time,” the TD added, referring to the party’s candidate Liadh Ní Riada who secured just 6.4 per cent of the vote in 2018.

“We would need to find a candidate who would have appeal to a broad range of the Irish electorate. That might mean us endorsing a non-party candidate.”

A few left-field candidates have been mentioned, including comedian Tommy Tiernan. His name being mentioned is a mystery to those who know him. He is a friend of Michael D Higgins and perhaps that is why his name is being mentioned, an acquaintance of his said. His candidacy is not seen as a likely prospect.

Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole has also been mentioned.

“Pure speculation I’m afraid,” he said. “No one in the political arena has mentioned it to me at all and I’ve no reason to believe it’s being discussed at any level.

“I don’t think it would be a runner in terms of a nomination from Oireachtas members and I have not the slightest intention of putting myself forward to county councils or trying to start an independent campaign.”

There is another character in the mix: Conor McGregor, the mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter against whom a finding of sexual assault was made by a High Court jury in a recent civil case. The jury awarded Dublin woman Nikita Hand, who accused McGregor of raping her in a Dublin hotel in 2018, more than €248,000 in damages against him in November.

McGregor in recent months announced his designs for the presidency on the social media network X (formerly Twitter), saying that he “would have all the answers the people of Ireland seek from these thieves of the working man, these disrupters of the family unit, these destructors of small businesses, and on and on and on!

“These charlatans in their positions of power would be summoned to answer to the people of Ireland and I would have it done by day end. Or I would be left with no choice but to dissolve the Dáil entirely. Stop the train until the people of Ireland deserve the answers they seek. Point blank. This would be my power as President.”

These, however, are not among the powers of the president.

He continued: “Ireland needs an active President employed wholly by the people of Ireland. It is me. I am the only logical choice.”

McGregor’s attempt to become president faces an immediate challenge: he would need the backing of four councils, or 20 Oireachtas members, to get to the start line and secure a nomination.

In politics, many things are possible but this may be beyond even someone with McGregor’s profile, particularly given the recent court ruling.