{"id":128957,"date":"2025-10-17T22:24:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T22:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/128957\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T22:24:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T22:24:11","slug":"humphreys-makes-plea-to-fianna-fail-supporters-to-lend-votes-for-presidential-election-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/128957\/","title":{"rendered":"Humphreys makes plea to Fianna F\u00e1il supporters to \u2018lend\u2019 votes for presidential election \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Fine Gael<\/a> presidential candidate Heather Humphreys<\/a> has made her strongest pitch yet to Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a> supporters to \u201clend\u201d her their votes for the presidential election<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With The Irish Times\/Ipsos poll showing that Ms Humphreys was struggling to attract the support of Fianna F\u00e1il voters \u2013 whose own candidate has quit the race \u2013 she appealed to them on Friday to support a \u201ccentre-ground candidate\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m asking people in Fianna F\u00e1il to please lend me their vote. I need their support as well,\u201d she told reporters in Dublin. \u201cThey\u2019re a centre-ground party, I\u2019m a centre-ground candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she was looking for support \u201cright across the political parties, whether it\u2019s the Green Party, Labour Party, but especially to Fianna F\u00e1il\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"Election Daily: Is it all over bar the shouting for Heather Humphreys?<\/p>\n

Earlier, in a speech focusing on the European Union, Ms Humphreys questioned her opponent Catherine Connolly<\/a>\u2019s attitude to Brexit and to the EU.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other candidate for president spoke the language of Nigel Farage when she accused those of us who warned of the dangers of Brexit of \u2018project fear\u2019 and concluded the British people had not been fooled,\u201d Ms Humphreys said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt showed bad judgment then, and even poorer judgment now.\u201d <\/p>\n

Addressing party members in Dublin, she said we need a president who is \u201cnot ashamed to be European\u201d, and who does not believe Europe has \u201clost its moral compass\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Presidential election explained: the candidates, how to vote, the powers of the president, and when will we know the result?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Ms Humphreys said Europe is \u201cnot the enemy\u201d but the \u201chome of our greatest allies and friends\u201d.<\/p>\n

Earlier Ms Connolly had dismissed as \u201ctotally inaccurate\u201d charges she supported Brexit.<\/p>\n

Speaking on a visit to Kerry on Friday, Ms Connolly again defended her 2018 trip to Syria and said she did not know that a man who she was photographed with was the leader of a pro-Assad group which was responsible for killing and starvation at camp in Yarmouk, a district in the Syrian capital Damascus.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you go to a country like that, I have no control,\u201d she told reporters on a canvass in Tralee. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have no control who is standing in front of me today. I have no control, when you visit a country like that, who comes up, who moves in and who moves out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat didn\u2019t take at all from the main reason that we were there. The only reason that we were there was to educate ourselves in relation to the Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Irish Times published on Friday a picture of Ms Connolly being guided around the camp by a militia leader, Saed Abd Al-Aal, linked to war crimes against Palestinian refugees.<\/p>\n

Mr Al-Aal led a pro-Assad armed group responsible for killing and starving Palestinian refugees in the camp.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Catherine Connolly pictured with man linked to war crimes in SyriaOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Ms Connolly also said that no one in Fine Gael had distanced themselves from comments by Ivan Yates, in which he said he would advise the party to \u201csmear the bejaysus out of her\u201d.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Radio Kerry, she claimed the former Fine Gael minister encouraged the party to smear her and create fear. Mr Yates\u2019 comments are widely regarded within Fine Gael as having caused Ms Humphreys\u2019 campaign damage. <\/p>\n

\u201cHowever nobody in Fine Gael, or the candidate, has distanced themselves from that comment from a former Fine Gael minister,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Ms Connolly launched an Irish language initiative which he said she would make a key feature of her presidency. <\/p>\n

After the disappointment of The Irish Times opinion poll, Fine Gael sought to turn up the heat on Ms Connolly. <\/p>\n

On the Syria trip, as well as her engagement with Oireachtas officials about an access pass for a woman convicted of a firearms offence, T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris said: \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of things that the deputy is kind of considering.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe gets asked a difficult question, she considers it \u2013 with a week left [until the election], it would be useful if her considerations could come to a conclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fine Gael presidential candidate Heather Humphreys has made her strongest pitch yet to Fianna F\u00e1il supporters to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,1921,18,13,14,4771,553,6,555,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,59,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-128957","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-catherine-connolly","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-fianna-fail","15":"tag-fine-gael","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-heather-humphreys","18":"tag-ie","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-latest-news","21":"tag-latestnews","22":"tag-main-news","23":"tag-mainnews","24":"tag-news","25":"tag-presidential-election","26":"tag-top-stories","27":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128957","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=128957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}