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LAST UPDATE | 31 Aug
FORMER MINISTER MARY Hanafin has said she is no longer seeking the Fianna Fáil nomination for the presidency.
Party leader Micheál Martin yesterday came out in support of the apparent frontrunner for the party’s candidate – former Dublin GAA manager Jim Gavin. Gavin has already secured the support of deputy party leader and Public Expenditure Minister Jack Chambers.
Minister for Children Norma Foley this afternoon also said she would be backing Gavin.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Brendan O’Connor show, Hanafin said she is “going to have to stay on the bench on this one” after initially expressing her interest in contesting the Fianna Fáil candidacy.
She criticised the party’s handling of the matter of its candidate and said that Martin had not discouraged her from running, but there was not adequate communication on the party’s processes in narrowing down its representative in the election.
Asked if she felt she had been treated with respect, she said: “I was certainly treated with respect at the very beginning of it.
“As it came towards the end, I have to say – and I said this to Micheál Martin the other night – a phone call would have made a difference, just to say ‘look, sorry Mary, we’re not running with you’ and I would have accepted that.
Unfortunately, in Fianna Fáil you tend to read an awful lot in the newspapers.
“So I could see that I wasn’t getting favourable comment in the newspaper, but I was on a flight back from my holidays last Monday morning and soon as I landed, I opened it up and I saw Jim Gavin. I said well, that’s it.”
Hanafin had expressed her interest in running for the Áras in June, and urged the party to run a candidate in the election.
She said that the lack of communication from the leadership in the party extended further than her- former party leader and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s experience was “worse” than her own as he skirted around whether he intended to present himself as the party’s candidate.
“He’s a former Taoiseach, he’s a former party leader. He should have been told ‘sorry, this is not a runner’,” she said, adding that she does not see a way in which Ahern would be able to secure the nomination.
It is “very hard” to win a battle in the parliamentary party in a representative does not have the backing of the party leader, she said.
She questioned whether MEP Billy Kelleher, who has said he intends to contest the Fianna Fáil candidacy, would be able to secure enough support to put up a fight.
Children’s Minister Norma Foley voiced her support for Gavin on RTÉ’s This Week programme. “I think we would be blessed beyond measure to have him as a Fianna Fáil candidate, and indeed, ultimately, as President,” she said.
“I think service and dedication to community and country has been the hallmark of Jim Gavin to date, and I think he would bring that to the presidency.”
Asked if Gavin would actually become a member of Fianna Fáil, Foley said he will be “running under the Fianna Fáil banner so he will be of the Fianna Fáil party”.
After being asked a number of times to clarify if this meant he would be joining the party, Foley said: “I don’t think that’s an issue. But he will be representing Fianna Fail if he’s a successful candidate. If that involves membership, then so be it.”
The Kerry TD was also asked if the Fianna Fáil had treated Hanafin and Ahern in not informing them that they would not be supported if they were to seek the party’s nomination had shown a lack of respect.
“I don’t think it’s within the gift of the leadership to decide who would be the Fianna Fáil nominee, and I think the Taoiseach has been very clear about that,” Foley said.
“He absolutely believes in the democracy of the party, facilitating everybody to have an opportunity to to make their case to the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party.”
She added that the Taoiseach has been clear that the ultimate decision will be made by the parliamentary party, adding that she expects the party to meet “shortly” and a vote to take place “subsequent to that”.
When pressed on whether Fianna Fáil MEP Billy Kelleher should now bow out of the contest now that the party leader has backed Gavin, Foley said that was “a judgment call for every other candidate to make, including Billy”.
With reporting from Jane Moore
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