Number of Áras hopefuls seeking Tipperary County Council's nomination has climbed to 20

The 20 people who have so far contacted Tipperary County Council interested in securing its nomination to contest the Presidential election as a candidate are invited to make a presentation before a special meeting of the local authority in Nenagh next Tuesday, September 16.

The meeting in the Council’s Nenagh Civic Offices at 10am that day is being convened to consider whether the local authority should nominate one of these prospective candidates to run in the race to find a successor to President Michael D. Higgins.

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People wishing to become a candidate in the presidential election must secure nominations from four local authorities or 20 Oireachtas members. The meetings of local authorities to consider nominating prospective candidates for the election started on Monday with Kerry County Council the first to hear pitches from presidential hopefuls.

The date for the special meeting was fixed at the monthly meeting of Tipperary County Council in Clonmel on Monday.

The Council’s Meetings Administrator Ger Walsh told councillors the Council’s Corporate Policy Group met last Friday and agreed to propose September 16 as the date for the special meeting. The suggested meeting date was proposed for approval by Mayor of Clonmel Cllr Pat English of the Workers & Unemployment Action Group and seconded by Fine Gael Cllr Mark Fitzgerald.

Mr Walsh said 16 people expressing a wish to address the Council to seek its nomination to contest the election as a candidate had been in touch with the Council up to Monday.

Since the meeting four more prospective candidates have contacted the Council about seeking its nomination to run in the election with two contacting the Council only yesterday (Tuesday, September 9).  

The list of 18 includes entrepreneur Peter Casey who contested the 2018 Presidential Election, pharma entrepreneur Gareth Sheridan and Kilsheelan born Prof. Dolores Cahill, who ran for the right-wing Irish Freedom Party in Tipperary in the 2020 General Election and was an anti-vaccine campaigner during the Covid pandemic.

Another Tipperary person seeking a nomination from the Council is Nick Delehanty, a native of Lisronagh, who runs a doggy daycare business and is a former solicitor.

Others who have contacted the Council about a presidential election nomination are: Dominick Plant, Prof. Joseph Chikelu Obi, Lorna McCormack, Paudie Sheehan, Cabdi Ní Chianáin or Charlotte Keenan from Mullingar, Dr Cora Stack, Sara Louise Mulligan, Billy O’Connell, Donnacha MacGabhann, Walter Ryan-Purcell, William P. Allen, Gerben Uunk, Gearód Duffy and a wheelbarrow called Barry Wheely-Row, the alter-ego of a Kerry writer named Stephen Murphy.

Lucy Anne O'Leary and Séana Kerr are the latest two prospective candidates to seek Tipperary County Council's nomination to run in the election. 

The Council has written to the presidential hopefuls inviting them to attend next Tuesday’s special meeting and make a presentation to the councillors outlining why they should secure the authority’s nomination.

Mr Walsh told the Council it was likely the eventual number of people who will come before next week’s special council meeting and make a presentation will be lower than the number who have contacted the Council because the special meetings of local authorities around the country to consider nomination presidential election candidates started this week.

Mr Walsh said the prospective candidates will be required to attend the special Council meeting in person to make their presentation.

They will also be required to submit their passport to the Council three days in advance of the special meeting.

The Council will only be able to nominate one candidate.

Meanwhile, Independent Cashel Cllr Liam Browne has said he is deeply dismayed by Tanaiste Simon Harris’ directive banning Fine Gael councillors from supporting Independent candidates seeking nominations for the presidency.

“This move is not only anti-democratic, but also a blatant attempt to control and restrict the people’s choice,” he declared.

He argued that Fine Gael’s position “undermines the very foundation of our democracy” and “sends a message that only party-approved candidates are welcome, and that alternative voices, no matter how credible or popular, should be silenced”.

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