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Senator David Norris announcing he has secured 13 signatures for his nomination on 21 July 2011. Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland
Race for the Áras
Candidates meet for first presidential debate as Norris staff quit
Members of the Norris campaign team have resigned, but haven’t said why.
SOME OF Senator David Norris’ senior campaign staff have resigned just days after the government announced that the election would be held on 27 October.
Stephen Collins reports in the Irish Times that the campaign’s director of communications and its director of elections resigned from the campaign yesterday without explaining why.
The report also says Norris was unavailable for comment last night, and that the resignations come after the senator’s former partner Ezra Yizhak Nawi was convicted of having sex with an underage Palestinian teenager in 1992 by an Israeli court.
Two people working on the youth campaign said via Twitter this morning that they were resigning from their roles. TheJournal.ie was unable to make contact with anyone from the Norris campaign team this morning.
RTÉ reports that Senators Marie-Louise O’Donnell and John Crown, who have both backed Norris, have called on the senator to explain how the Israeli case relates to his campaign. The Marian Finucane radio show said this morning that Norris’ campaign team said it would not be releasing a statement at this stage.
Some of the former staff members said on Twitter today that a newspaper would carry more information tomorrow.
The senator has consistently performed strongly in public opinion polls of the presidential candidates.
First debate
Last night, the other four declared presidential candidates met for the first debate of the election campaign during the MacGill Summer School in Glenties, Co Donegal.
The debate between Labour’s Michael D Higgins, Fine Gael’s Gay Mitchell, and Independent candidates Sean Gallagher and Mary Davis centred on the role of the president.
The Independent reports that each of the four focused on the importance to restore Ireland’s international reputation.
Higgins decried the “selfishness on the part of a minority” that “destroyed our country”, while Mitchell called for a return to “a less harsh and more merciful society”. Both Davis and Gallagher spoke about encouraging business development, with the former emphasising international trade while the latter discussed tackling unemployment.
The election will be held on 27 October, along with a referendum on changing judges’ wages and reversing the Abbeylara judgment.
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