2025 Irish Presidential candidates

Are you not "Paddy", or are you just talking about other Paddies?

That's exactly what they did do - taking their role very seriously, they agreed that the best candidate was the incumbent.

Saying they should have nominated some no-hoper or nutcase just to force a vote is ridiculous. No credible candidate would have put themselves forward as a guaranteed loser, and no political party would have wasted their resources campaigning for them either. With the possible exception of SF but IIRC they would have needed other parties to support them getting a nomination at that time.

It's Mairead McGuinness for me from the list above. Regarding Frank Finlay, a thousand times NO!

Hah! You got me there. I thought I had changed it to Fergus! Obviously I tripped up!

SF had 5 Dáil seats (and no senators) at the time; it would have required a hell of a lot of enabling. They would have needed almost every single TD and Senator to come in for them; or a deal with another party - none of which would have countenanced it.

Only FG, FF and Labour had the numbers to nominate a candidate via the Oireachtas. Greens had 6 TDs/0 Senators and PDs 8 TDs/4 Senators

Article 12.1.2.1 of the Constitution of Ireland

The President shall be elected by direct vote of the people.

Its not up for discussion.

As for runners and riders; I would have preferred if Fergus Finlay had been nominated by Labour in 2011 over Michael D, but the former is 74 now, and thats too old.

There are a few enthusiastic FGers who want a run, namely Mairead McGuinness and Sean Kelly MEP. Enda Kenny is being mentioned too, but he's 73, so I think not. Likewise Frances Fitzgerald. McGuinness will probably get the nod ultimately, in exchange for having cleared the EU Commissioner road for Michael McGrath without a fuss.

Hard to know who FF will go for. It won't be Bertie, and it won't be Micheál Martin as he intends to be Taoiseach again. They could back a party outsider as they did with Mary McAleese. Perhaps someone like Emily O'Reilly, or Jarlath Burns.

Or it may be that the next FG/FF/Indys coalition will nominate an agreed candidate to share the cost and get a large heft of backing behind.

If I could have my fantasy list of nominees, they would include:

Mairead McGuinness

Catherine Day

Emily O'Reilly

David O'Sullivan

Emily Logan

Frances Black

Simon Coveney

Frank Clarke

Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh

Dr. Mike J Ryan

Professor John Crown

Brendan Gleeson

And no doubt a few more I'll think of.

My criteria is for a person or substance, of keen intelligence, deeply immersed in representing the Country and the People in an important field, and who will advocate for the people and have the character to fight tooth and nail to protect the integrity of the State and the Constitution in every way.

And if I hear any more mentions next year of Kevin Sharkey types or any c**t off of f**king Dragon's Den, I will lose my reason. Take your ego trips elsewhere lads.

Labour would need quite a good election result to be able to nominate without assistance from another party, or multiple parties - 11 Oireachtas reps elected in 2020; need 20. Even the Soc Dems 6 would not be enough if the election results were repeated exactly - lets ignore that there's a lot more seats so both should probably gain at least one if the share of the vote was identical; even both gaining one would leave them one short!

That was the case in 1990 (Workers Party) and 1997 (Democratic Left) too of course. The 1997 funding arrangements arguably caused the party merger - DL owed Labour a six figure sum by the end of it.

Not a bad list all told

Frank Clarke will be out based on your age criteria (73 in 2025). Anyway look at what happened the last time the job went to a former Chief Justice !

Máire Geoghegan-Quinn (73)
and Olivia O'Leary (75) are another two who miss out on age grounds.

And please, no more z-list celebs, dragoneers, entertainment has-beens etc.

They owed Labour money from the Adi Roche presidential campaign.

She was originally nominated by Labour, then DL also officially endorsed her and agree to contribute to campaign costs.

From what I remember they were too small at the time to get much State funding, and as a result had run up other debt as well. All of which Labour agreed to take on as part of the merger.

6 Seats or 3.75% of the Dáil. Same number as social democrats, half the number of Greens

I think largely the electorate are happy for them to be in Europe or the local authority where they can't create too many problems but haven't forgiven them for their record between 2011 and 2016. There's 2 of the old Guard left from that era, Alan Kelly and Brendan Howlin. If those 2 step down there could be a resurgence

With regards to the presidential candidate if Labour pick a "celebrity" candidate they might just sneak it