{"id":11158,"date":"2025-08-20T08:32:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T08:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/11158\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T08:32:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T08:32:07","slug":"in-heather-humphreys-fine-gael-faithful-think-theyve-found-their-first-president-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/11158\/","title":{"rendered":"In Heather Humphreys, Fine Gael faithful think they\u2019ve found their first president \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A successful 2025 presidential election campaign is likely to demand a candidate who can command support within party politics but still foster an identity that exists outside of it. <\/p>\n

A cascade of nominations for Heather Humphreys<\/a> from the majority of the Fine Gael parliamentary party started rolling in on Tuesday as soon as she announced her intention to run. But the most vital endorsements came days ago from Independent politicians Michael Healy-Rae, Se\u00e1n Canney and Noel Grealish. This attracted significant attention in Fine Gael, which knows very few of its party members would be able to attract such support. <\/p>\n

This is why the current tally at the time of writing of more than 30 endorsements for Humphreys and fewer than 10 for Se\u00e1n Kelly<\/a> does a disservice to the MEP and former GAA chief. The Munster vote-getter is well respected within his party, and it wasn\u2019t without some anguish that some of his party colleagues declared for Humphreys instead. But the momentum was going one way. The buoyant mood in Fine Gael this week is that of a party that thinks it\u2019s found its first ever president of Ireland. <\/p>\n

Fine Gael was planning to formally launch Mairead McGuinness\u2019s campaign in the days before the National Ploughing Championships in Tullamore that will kick off in the third week of September. The campaign launch date will be kept the same for the new Fine Gael candidate \u2013 in all likelihood Humphreys \u2013 which the party is presenting as proof that it hasn\u2019t lost any time. The time that elapsed between McGuinness dropping out and the party finding two new candidates was so brief, T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris never once found himself in front of a microphone having to account for what his party\u2019s plan was now. <\/p>\n

Though the nomination process will technically continue for another week, Fine Gael is already actively planning how its campaign could be altered to suit Humphreys. Some elements of the McGuinness campaign can be transferred to Humphreys who, like the former MEP, shares a penchant for an agricultural show. But under Humphreys, the campaign would shift more towards the themes of community and a shared island. Think Tidy Towns and tolerance. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Heather Humphreys and Se\u00e1n Kelly presidential face-off expected as Fine Gael reopens nominationsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Fine Gael is expecting opposition to a Humphreys campaign to try to tie her to Government failings in housing and health over her 10 years at the cabinet table. This was borne out in a press release from Sinn F\u00e9in on Tuesday evening, which said \u201cHeather Humphreys will have to account for 14 years of Fine Gael failure\u201d. <\/p>\n

Humphreys will face tough questions on aspects of her government record, including her role as director of elections for the failed 2024 referendums, a Green Paper on disability reform that was so controversial it had to be withdrawn, and her reported opposition to an increase in jobseeker\u2019s allowance. But Fine Gael figures are confident that Humphreys\u2019s time as a minister was \u201cvery impactful but not that controversial\u201d given she never held a portfolio such as health or housing. <\/p>\n

If its candidate is Humphreys, Fine Gael has enough humility to know that her strength will be that she doesn\u2019t seem all that Fine Gael. There used to be a running joke at cabinet that the former minister got on better with Fianna F\u00e1il than she did with her own party colleagues. <\/p>\n

The reason Humphreys attracted so much support within Fine Gael\u2019s parliamentary party is because politicians recognised her ability to attract support from all kinds of people outside it. For example, earlier this year she sat down for a podcast interview with former president Mary McAleese and broadcaster Mary Kennedy. As Humphreys was talking about how much she likes playing the piano, McAleese pointedly interrupted her: \u201cThere\u2019s a great Steinway in the \u00c1ras.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A successful 2025 presidential election campaign is likely to demand a candidate who can command support within party…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,7335,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-11158","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-irish-politics","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}