LAST UPDATE | 27 Oct 2018

BUSINESSMAN GAVIN DUFFY has said he has “no regrets” about running in the presidential election. 

The defeated candidate, whose share of the vote is predicted to be around the 2% mark, congratulated Michael D Higgins, on what is expected to be a landslide win.

“The first thing I want to say is the people have spoken and they’ve spoken very very clearly with a large mandate, we’ll learn later on it could be a historic mandate for my president and your president Michael D Higgins. And I want to wish him all the best and extend every good wish to him,” he said, adding:

“For myself, I am disappointed when you contest and you don’t really compete. But no regrets, genuinely. I think the issues that I’ve raised, and I accept the blame here, if they didn’t resonate with the public it’s perhaps that I’m slightly ahead of where the public concerns are around the changes in society.”

Speaking about his fellow Dragon’s Den colleague, Duffy said he has never made it a secret that he and Peter Casey are friends. He called him a “decent” guy, though he said they disagreed on certain ideologies. 

Commenting on Casey’s campaign, he said there was no “evil genius” strategy at play, adding that Casey merely threw grenades in hope that one would land.

Duffy put his own money behind his campaign, and told journalists today that he has spend well over €100,000, which, with such a low vote, he will not be able to recoup.

He said today that he does not intend to run in the next presidential election.

When conceding earlier today, he acknowledged that he didn’t perform well as an election candidate in his bid for the presidency. 

Speaking to Newstalk’s Pat Kenny this morning he said: 

The platform I put forward never resonated with people. 

As a candidate I didn’t perform. 

The former Dragons’ Den start told Kenny it’s too early to say if he’ll run again. He also admitted that having business people in the race, three of them former reality TV stars, “diluted the votes”. 

Duffy said the vote, which shows President Michael D Higgins is in store for a landslide victory, proves people are interested in a candidate from outside the political establishment: 

There is a 25-30% vote there from outside of the political establishment. 

Duffy however insists he doesn’t think his media training business which provides coaching services will suffer as a result of his performance. 

He thanked the media for fair treatment during the campaign, and wished President Michael D Higgins well in his second term. 

Duffy highlighted that without this weekend’s vote Higgins would not have had a mandate. 

Our democracy is best served by the process we have gone through.