The Race for the Áras (10 page)

A journalist challenged Kenny, saying he looked disappointed with the result. ‘Am I supposed to be going around grinning like a Cheshire cat at everything?' Kenny replied tartly.

The next edition of the
Phoenix
had Mitchell and Kenny on the cover, with a speech bubble from Mitchell saying, ‘There'll be a gay in the Park for sure.' Kenny's bubble replied: ‘But it won't be you.'

A number of profiles of Mitchell were published in the wake of his selection. It was said in the
Daily Mail
that he was

This was a reference to an event in 2003 when Mitchell, who consistently campaigned against the death penalty, called on the Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, to spare the life of Paul Jennings Hill, who in 1994 murdered a doctor and his bodyguard because the doctor performed abortions. Hill was executed by lethal injection. Mitchell had also campaigned to prevent the execution of Louis Joe Truesdale, Junior, the rapist and murderer of a teenager.

Mitchell made the headlines again in 2010 when he invited the radical anti-abortion activist Dr Alveda King (a niece of Dr Martin Luther King) to Dublin, where she met senior members of Fine Gael, including Kenny. The
Mail
also reminded readers of his notorious cousin George Mitchell, ‘the Penguin', a drug-runner and criminal who had been disowned by the family.

For Harry McGee of the
Irish Times
, Mitchell had the
CV
and history of a self-made man who had risen through the ranks of the party. McGee quoted an admirer as saying, ‘He may be prickly, but there is huge admiration for loyalty, his pedigree and what he has achieved over the past thirty years.'

However, some party handlers saw him as a nightmare candidate, with his strong views and with no cross-demographic appeal. A close supporter of Mitchell offered the opinion that

Chapter
6
   
THE PEOPLE'S FAVOURITE

T
he broadcaster Gay Byrne was with his wife, Kathleen Watkins, at their holiday home in the Rosses, Co. Donegal, when his mobile phone rang on Saturday 6 August. It was the Fianna Fáil leader, Micheál Martin. Martin was also on holiday, in Skibbereen, Co Cork, at the other end of the country.

Byrne had celebrated his seventy-seventh birthday the previous day. His daughters had been among the first to ring and congratulate him: Suzy, who was on holiday in France, and Crona and her husband, from their home in Killaloe, Co. Clare.

It was Crona's phone call that had intrigued Byrne most. She told her father that during the previous week she had been ‘bombarded' with calls from a local
TD
, Timmy Dooley. He had eventually arranged to meet her near his home village of Tulla, close to Ennis.

Dooley was one of six members of a sub-committee set up by Micheál Martin to explore the party's options before the coming presidential election. Always affable, humorous and self-deprecating, and a shrewd political operator, he was well known as the eyes and ears of the leader in the parliamentary party.

As it turned out, Martin had entrusted Dooley with sounding out Gay Byrne to see whether he would be prepared to run for the Áras on the Fianna Fáil ticket. At their meeting, Dooley floated this with Crona and asked her to approach her father.

At any other time in recent Irish history, endorsement by Fianna Fáil would have virtually guaranteed the Presidency to a candidate. But these times were different. Fianna Fáil had carried the blame for Ireland's economic meltdown, and the brand was now toxic with the electorate. In the general election a few months earlier there had been a collapse in the Fianna Fáil vote and the loss of three-quarters of its seats.

Before the general election an unprecedented number of former Fianna Fáil stalwarts, under no illusions about how they were likely to fare, had retired. Consequently, Fianna Fáil did not field a sufficient number of candidates to form a Government, even if by some miracle every one of them had been elected. In the event, the overbearingly dominant political party since the foundation of the state lost a staggering fifty-eight seats and was able to return only twenty
TD
s to the Dáil.

When the presidential election began to appear on the horizon, Fianna Fáil was more than €2.1 million in debt and still limping along in the opinion polls. There was a heated debate within the party about whether anyone should be selected to run at all—a previously unthinkable prospect for Fianna Fáil. If, irrespective of the party's dire financial state, the decision was ‘yes', who on earth should it be? Indeed, given how the party was viewed by the country, who would be brave enough?

A number of senior Fianna Fáil politicians had let it be known that they would be available if called on by the party. Senator Mary White, owner of Lir Chocolates and wife of Padraic White, former managing director of the Industrial Development Authority and a policy adviser to the party, had previously expressed an interest in running.

The
MEP
for the Ireland South constituency, Brian Crowley, a hugely popular vote-winner throughout Munster, had also made it clear that he was interested in running, long before the vote meltdown, in an interview on ‘The Late Late Show'.

Éamon Ó Cuív, a former Minister for the Gaeltacht and Minister for Social Protection, had an eye to destiny and history and was interested in holding the same office as his grandfather and the party's founder, Éamon de Valera.

Another former minister, Mary Hanafin, was also considered a possible late entrant for a Fianna Fáil nomination. Until a sub-committee appointed by the leadership produced its report and recommendation on the presidential race, she would continue to figure in online debates and in media speculation.

Polling carried out privately by Fianna Fáil to test the public mood showed that even the party's biggest vote-catcher, Brian Crowley, could gain only a 9 per cent approval, such was the hostility to the party. This surprisingly poor rating showed that he could not get elected.

However, publicly the party was reserving its position. After all, it was argued, Mary McAleese had been selected only five weeks before polling day in the last presidential election fourteen years earlier, and so there was time to consider and watch events unfold.

To the many members of the party who expressed their frustration on social media about the internal decision-making process it seemed that the party was dithering. Their frustration was further heightened when their comments, supposedly made in an internal and closed forum, were quoted in the media.

As the Dáil broke for the summer recess in July, Martin appointed a six-member parliamentary committee to consider the party's options. It consisted of himself, Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West), a potential candidate, Dara Calleary (Mayo), Niall Collins (Limerick), Timmy Dooley (Clare), Seán Ó Fearghail (Kildare South) and one senator, Darragh O'Brien (Malahide, Co. Dublin).

One month later Dooley was to phone Gay Byrne's daughter, who in turn spoke to Byrne. His response was lukewarm and he was to claim later that his daughter had ‘jokingly referred to it once or twice.'

Dooley, as a conduit, served three purposes: an approach to Byrne could be considered informal and unofficial, even though Dooley was a member of the Presidency Committee; it allowed Byrne time to think about the offer; and it kept the party leader at a deniable arm's length. The danger was that, unless tightly controlled, the approach might become public knowledge before the candidate had fully made a commitment. The public revelation could irk party members as well as the Presidency Committee, but a rejection by the candidate because their cover was blown, or because they decided this was not an offer they could accept, could prove highly embarrassing and, within the party, divisive.

In retrospect, putting Byrne forward as a candidate must have seemed like an obvious choice, a ‘stroke' even. He was a household name, much-loved among the public, a good communicator and a good candidate.

 

In Co. Clare you could pick up 4
FM
. The new radio station broadcast into four cities—Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway—and was aimed at listeners aged forty and older who liked classic hits.

It cost twenty cents to cast a vote in any opinion poll on ‘The David Harvey Show' on 4
FM
. Harvey, a highly experienced broadcaster with an easy manner, knew how to engage with his audience for his afternoon chat show, and on Wednesday 3 August he effectually launched a new candidate for the Áras with his provocative question: ‘Who would you trust as the ninth President of Ireland?'

A woman who identified herself simply as Caroline suggested that they should include Gay Byrne, the host of ‘The Late Late Show', which had dominated the television ratings during its 37-year run on
RTE
. It was the world's longest-running chat show. Texters and callers offered other options, including already-declared candidates.

Byrne topped the poll, with 47 per cent, the declared candidate Mary Davis took 16 per cent, the television presenter Mary Kennedy 11 per cent, the journalist Miriam O'Callaghan 9 per cent and the former supermarket owner Feargal Quinn 8 per cent. The pundit, retailer and cocaine-and-prostitute-scandal figure Ben Dunne trailed at 5 per cent, with others picking up just 4 per cent.

On Friday, Byrne was celebrating his birthday, and the latest presenter of ‘The Late Late Show', Ryan Tubridy, had Byrne as a guest on his morning radio programme on 2
FM
, on which he was quizzed about his reaction to the phone-in poll. Byrne said that his name

Asked the obvious question—would he run for President?—he gave an open-ended answer.

His refusal to rule out making a bid for the Presidency unleashed a storm of media speculation over the coming days. That coverage was to incite speculation within Fianna Fáil that perhaps Byrne could be the talisman for the resurrection of the party.

When Micheál Martin rang him on Saturday evening it was a surprise to Byrne. Martin tantalised him with the offer of another birthday present: the possibility of the keys to Áras an Uachtaráin.

Martin put his offer in the simplest of terms. If Byrne wanted to run as an independent candidate Fianna Fáil would provide the twenty nominations from members of the parliamentary party required to secure a nomination—thus ruling out the gruelling tour of county councils in the hope of securing four nominations.

No time limit for a response was suggested. While there would be media pressure for a response when the offer was eventually made public, there was no political imperative to respond, as nominations would not close until September, which was still some weeks away.

The following day the off-lead front-page story of the
Sunday Independent
quoted Byrne directly, having interviewed him before Martin's phone call.

It was only days after David Norris had been forced to withdraw from the race, and it was the nearest confirmation that Byrne was open to make a run for the Áras. His comments also suggested that, perhaps dutifully, he would consider making the sacrifice of running and of perhaps taking up office for his country and its people. It was a folksy, considerate, humorous quotation that nodded towards the required self-sacrifice. It was also a considered sound-bite from one of the country's most respected and experienced communicators. It was duly splashed on the front page, under a picture of Gaybo and a teaser for the opinion poll inside announcing that ‘Gay Byrne gets the Norris vote.'

The newspaper also reported an unnamed Fianna Fáil spokesperson as saying, ‘Gay Byrne would make an excellent candidate.' But it added that the party had yet to decide whether it would nominate its own candidate or back an independent one.

The withdrawal of Norris, announced the previous Tuesday, gave the
Sunday Independent
time to commission an opinion poll from Quantum Research on the Norris decision and another on voting intentions. It included declared runners and added the speculative runners, Dana and Gay Byrne.

The Áras race dominated coverage in the best-selling Sunday broadsheet, and the headline over the opinion poll presaged the tone of coverage for the coming days. ‘Gay Byrne is people's choice although he's not officially in the race … yet.'

The nationwide opinion poll consisted of a random selection of five hundred homes telephoned by professional researchers. Quantum emphasised that it was was not a phone-in poll in which the possibility existed for political parties and special-interest groups to influence the outcome.

It was a definitive result: Byrne topped the poll, with 34 per cent of the vote. In four previous opinion polls only David Norris had polled higher (and in only one, lower). Norris took 39 per cent on 5 June, then 30 per cent on 19 June, 37 per cent on 3 July, and finally 42 per cent—exactly twice his nearest rival, the newly declared candidate Gay Mitchell. In the August poll that included Byrne, Mitchell had dropped back 6 points to 21 per cent and was trailed by Michael D. Higgins at 16 per cent, with Mary Davis, Seán Gallagher and Dana trailing at 11, 10 and 8 per cent, respectively.

However, inside the paper the potentially more significant quotations about Byrne ‘not having the stomach' for campaigning or ‘auditioning' weren't seized upon for headlines. For Byrne,

This seemed less thought through than his front-page comment, but it clearly suggested that he would prefer an Oireachtas nomination rather than the reversal of his previous role of interviewer to become interviewee.