Cox launches campaign to run for president

Former MEP Pat Cox has today officially launched his bid to seek the Fine Gael nomination to run for the presidency.

At a press conference in the Mansion House in Dublin, he said that it if he did not get the party's nomination he would not run as an independent candidate.

He will battle for the nomination against long-standing MEPs Gay Mitchell and Mairead McGuinness, saying that there would now be a dialogue in Fine Gael between its heart and its head.