{"id":116741,"date":"2025-10-12T04:34:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T04:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/116741\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T04:34:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T04:34:12","slug":"micheal-martin-apologises-for-partys-abandoned-presidential-campaign-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/116741\/","title":{"rendered":"Miche\u00e1l Martin apologises for party\u2019s abandoned presidential campaign \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> has apologised to the Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a> base for the \u201cclear failure\u201d of the party\u2019s now-abandoned presidential campaign. <\/p>\n

The Taoiseach, who confirmed this week that he will vote for Heather Humphreys,<\/a> said he would not be campaigning for the Fine Gael<\/a> candidate or telling his party to back her. \u201cIt\u2019s up to individual people to make their own decisions and vote in whatever way they want,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He claimed that Independent left-wing candidate Catherine Connolly <\/a>was \u201canti-EU\u201d and that it was important that the president isn\u2019t engaged in \u201cconstant negative commentary\u201d about the EU, the United States or European countries. <\/p>\n

More than 1,000 Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a> members gathered in the Clayton Hotel in Dublin 4 on Saturday night for the party\u2019s annual Cairde F\u00e1il dinner. Guests who travelled along the Mespil Road to the event had to pass a series of Jim Gavin<\/a> posters, which remain on lamp-posts one week after the Fianna F\u00e1il candidate sensationally dropped out of the race. <\/p>\n

In his speech, Mr Martin told the packed ballroom \u201cit\u2019s very important that I start by acknowledging a clear failure\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the last month I heard from many of you about how excited you were for us to be competing in a presidential election for the first time in 28 years. And I have also heard from you about how upset you are and how disappointed our members are about how events transpired,\u201d Mr Martin said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI want to acknowledge that and to say how deeply sorry I am about how things turned out.\u201d<\/p>\n

He told attendees that the Fianna F\u00e1il parliamentary party had had \u201ca very long discussion\u201d during the week. <\/p>\n

\u201cI want to acknowledge the constructive suggestions about making sure that we quickly learn our lessons from this and that we reflect these in how we move forward,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Mr Martin said he would support a plan to reform the way presidential candidates are selected in future. <\/p>\n

Mr Martin told journalists at the event that he has not met Mr Gavin since he dramatically left the presidential campaign, but said \u201cthe family need time out\u201d and he has been in contact with close friends of Mr Gavin. \u201cI had sensitive discussions with Jim on Sunday evening,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The Taoiseach said he was \u201cglad\u201d that the \u20ac3,300 owed to Mr Gavin\u2019s former tenant had been repaid. Mr Martin said that the tenant, who was this week revealed as Sunday World deputy editor Niall Donald, \u201cis also a victim in all this\u201d. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Who knew what and when: the dramatic hours leading to the collapse of Jim Gavin\u2019s campaignOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Asked if it was possible for Fianna F\u00e1il to get any of the money it had already spent on the campaign back, Mr Martin said that \u201cin every election campaign, particularly presidential election campaigns, you commit once you select your candidate.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said that the party was financially \u201cresilient\u201d. \u201cSo everything has to be looked at in perspective,\u201d Mr Martin said. <\/p>\n

In his speech to the party faithful on Saturday night, Mr Martin said that it is a \u201ctesting time\u201d for the European Union. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many who want to roll back its powers or to stop it helping countries faced with urgent threats. Unfortunately, these anti-EU sentiments are often found here. Of course these people always pretend that they are not anti-EU, but their demands expose the reality of their beliefs,\u201d Mr Martin said in his speech. <\/p>\n

Asked if he was referring to Ms Connolly, Mr Martin said: \u201cI\u2019m referring to Sinn F\u00e9in, I am referring to Catherine, who would have clear views in that way, Paul Murphy, People Before Profit, all of those are anti-EU.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Joe Brolly video depicting sex act by presidential candidate is \u2018misogynistic\u2019, says Heather HumphreysOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Mr Martin said that after Russia invaded Ukraine, \u201cCatherine would be blaming the West\u201d. He also claimed that Ms Connolly was part of a cohort of politicians, including Sinn F\u00e9in, who believed that European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen was a \u201cwarmonger\u201d. <\/p>\n

He said he felt it was important that the president of Ireland \u201cis one who can get on with other countries\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd will not find themselves criticising or engaging in constant negative commentary about the European Union, about Germany, France or other countries, or indeed about the United States,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

On his own leadership, Mr Martin said that he was \u201cstill as hungry as ever\u201d. In what appeared to be a veiled reference to Cork TDs James O\u2019Connor and S\u00e9amus McGrath, who had been publicly critical of the Taoiseach in the wake of the disastrous end to its presidential campaign, Mr Martin said that he had been \u201cin every TDs constituency\u201d. <\/p>\n

\"\"Will Jim Gavin controversy do lasting damage to Miche\u00e1l Martin\u2019s leadership of Fianna Fail?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve canvassed for a lot of them. And one or two now, who are naysayers, I had my suspicions … I worked very hard for. Okay? Very hard. But that\u2019s life. I\u2019m philosophical about all of that.\u201d <\/p>\n

Minister for Justice Jim O\u2019Callaghan<\/a> this week indicated that he would be interested in becoming Fianna F\u00e1il leader at some point in the future. Mr Martin said that that was \u201cquite a reasonable thing to say\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd there\u2019s nothing wrong with ambition at all. And Jim is proving himself to be a very competent and effective Minister for Justice,\u201d Mr Martin said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Miche\u00e1l Martin has apologised to the Fianna F\u00e1il base for the \u201cclear failure\u201d of the party\u2019s now-abandoned presidential…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116742,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,4771,6,19,17,19487,11,12,15,16,5765,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-116741","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-fianna-fail","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-jim-gavin","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-micheal-martin","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116741","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=116741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}