Letters to the Editor: Catherine Connolly could be contentious
Presidential candidate Catherine Connolly. Picture: Sasko Lazarov
Presidential candidate Catherine Connolly as an opposition Independent TD has regularly clashed sharply on matters of policy with the centrist governments that have held office since she has been first elected to the Dáil.
As such, if she were to be elected president later this month, Ireland could arguably be on the potential cusp of witnessing the most significant extent of palpable tensions between its head of state and its serving government since the days of the incongruent atmosphere that persisted between former president Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh and the government led by former taoiseach Liam Cosgrave in the 1970s.
That episode culminated in the resignation of a president due to a relationship with the government that had broken down and become, in short summary, irreconcilable.
Since the reassurance restored to the presidency after this time by the two uncontested terms of the former minister and European commissioner, Dr Patrick Hillery, Ireland has become accustomed to a perpetual stability in ongoing relationships between the president and the government, to an extent that this is practically taken for granted nowadays.
Even on occasions where President Michael D Higgins has boldly ventured into commentary on foreign policy, the government has typically followed the prevailing line and the substance of his pronouncements.
Yet were a Connolly presidency to soon emerge and if the people’s parliament, the Oireachtas, were to approve new legislation deemed to be constitutional — but against her personal views such as on defence — would she be willing to commit resolutely in advance to sign as president all such legislation into law?
Can it be committed to in advance that such a signature would always be forthcoming, on each and every occasion, without any public rebuke or expression of criticism regarding any such legislation tangibly or implicitly directed to the government of the day?
The president, if satisfied that legislation is constitutional, has a requirement to sign such legislation into law once the legislation is presented to the president for signature, within seven days, and this typically occurs without much public comment beforehand or afterward.
I’m no legal expert but cancellation of a presidential election due to the withdrawal of a candidate has no basis in law, and would appear to be unconstitutional.
Surely Maria Steen has a copy of Bunreacht na hÉireann in her handbag?
This Government has provided us with a stingy budget.
However, I would urge them to stop being profligate with taxpayers’ money.
The threat of US president Donald Trump’s tariffs has not gone away.
I keep hearing people talk about finality and certainty. The reality is you have no finality, you have no certainty, as long as Donald Trump is in the White House.
Whatever about agreements, this guy on a whim could tear up any agreement there is and impose very, very high tariffs.
We are still very exposed and so it’s incumbent on the state to ensure they are not spending our money on vanity projects.
We had a €490,000 wall and the €335,000 Leinster House bike shelter, etc, which was a scandalous waste of taxpayers’ money.
This Government’s wasteful spending of other people’s money must be brought to an end.
The Government has a strange sense of priorities. There’s almost nothing in the budget for nature or climate action, in the middle of a biodiversity crisis... but a whopping €99.1m for the horse and greyhound industries.
Very generous indeed compared to the pittance annually set aside for other sports that struggle for lack of funding.
A mere €11.5m has been allocated to domestic and gender-based violence initiatives.
Is that cause deemed by those in power to be less deserving than the bloodstock sector?
The horse and greyhound industries both claim to be money-spinning, highly successful sectors that generate huge benefits for the economy. Why, then, do they need State handouts?
There are serious animal welfare issues with both industries, but especially greyhound racing.
Thousands of dogs go missing each year, and many are abandoned or disposed of when they are either too old or have consistently under-performed on the track.
And the sector exports dogs to jurisdictions where animal welfare protection is poor or non-existent.
The Government should focus on tackling poverty, homelessness, domestic abuse, the housing emergency, and the biodiversity crisis… instead of trying to keep dogs and horses running around in circles.
Niall Carson’s photograph showing Micheál Martin and Bertie Ahern exchanging ‘greetings’, after Martin Mansergh’s funeral (Irish Examiner, October 7), admirably reflected the irony of their reputed frosty relationship.
It is a classic example of the expression that a picture speaks louder than a thousand words.
I welcome Jim Gavin’s withdrawal from the presidential race.
The presidency is not a popularity contest, it is a job. A job that should require qualifications like any other.
To suggest that any individual could begin their political career in one of the highest positions in the land is gross entitlement of the highest order.
We need to stop treating political campaigns as entertainment and start treating them as job interviews. We are electing these people to do a job on our behalf.
Our personal feelings about them should not matter.
All we need to ask ourselves is if they are qualified to do the job, and if so has their record to date shown that they’re more qualified than other candidates.
The president is charged with acting as a guardian of the Constitution.
Any prospective candidate should be intimately familiar with the Constitution and should be questioned accordingly in interviews.
Furthermore, they should be capable of interpreting it in Irish because in the case of a dispute between the two versions, the Irish version takes precedence.
The president is further charged with dedicating their abilities to “the service and welfare of the people of Ireland”.
Candidates should be able to demonstrate how their track record demonstrates suitability for undertaking such a great responsibility and that record should be strong enough to withstand scrutiny when we search for evidence that they have fallen short.
The presidency is a role that carries a great deal of responsibility, but also great privilege.
The president will receive a handsome salary that many of us will never approach.
In the lead-up to this campaign, there was a great deal of debate and noise surrounding the qualifying criteria for an Áras run.
Strangely, those voices were not calling for greater accountability from candidates, but rather to lower the barrier to entry.
Many argued the president did not need previous experience in political office, or to be able to speak the first language of the nation.
This attempt to lower the standard of candidates would diminish the presidency, reducing it to a prize we offer to opportunistic charlatans rather than a responsibility we bestow on the best among us.
We need only look to our western neighbours to see where that dangerous path ends.
We cannot continue to lament a lack of competence in political life while lobbying to reduce the standards by which we hold elected officials to account.
If we wish to see a better calibre of candidate holding office we, the electorate, have a responsibility to take this interview process seriously.
I have examined the track record and qualifications of the available candidates and on October 24 I will cast my vote, not for the candidate I like the best, but for the one who is the most qualified for the job. I urge your readers to do the same.
