How much power does the Government hold over the President?
This has led to a rather stultifying political situation where the candidates, desperate to distinguish themselves from each other, search for any slight edge to gain public approval. While the president might be mainly a symbolic figure — the personification of the state — they nevertheless fulfil a political role.
When President McAleese commented on the Nice Treaty referendum during a state visit to Greece in July 2002, a number of politicians expressed the view that her intervention went beyond that allowed by her role with John Gormley of the Greens advising her to “butt out” of the political debate.