{"id":23718,"date":"2025-08-26T06:24:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T06:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/23718\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T06:24:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T06:24:07","slug":"bertie-ahern-not-among-fianna-fail-favourites-for-presidential-run-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/23718\/","title":{"rendered":"Bertie Ahern not among Fianna F\u00e1il favourites for presidential run \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Fianna F\u00e1il leadership remains strongly opposed to the possibility of former taoiseach Bertie Ahern<\/a> becoming the party\u2019s candidate for president<\/a>, according to several senior sources familiar with Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a>\u2019s thinking.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, they said, the former Dublin football manager Jim Gavin is being viewed as a serious prospect.<\/p>\n

A meeting of the Fianna F\u00e1il parliamentary party meeting is expected to be scheduled for the middle of next week, at which point Mr Martin will set out his thinking about the party\u2019s options.<\/p>\n

However, it is unlikely that a candidate will be selected until later in September, insiders said.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Fintan O\u2019Toole: The pain and shame that Bertie Ahern caused this country is not forgottenOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Senior sources familiar with discussions on the issue said the view of the party leadership \u2013 understood to be shared by Mr Martin, key aides, several Ministers and TDs \u2013 is that former taoiseach Mr Ahern should not be the party\u2019s candidate in the election, which is likely to be scheduled for late October.<\/p>\n

Mr Ahern, who is currently in Croatia for meetings with senior figures in the region, was unavailable for comment.<\/p>\n

There is now a general acceptance in Fianna F\u00e1il that the party will run a candidate. This marks a change since the start of the summer when senior party figures insisted Fianna F\u00e1il was undecided about contesting the election.<\/p>\n

A series of elected representatives have voiced their belief in recent weeks that the party should run a candidate, which is a view now accepted by most senior party figures. One backbencher said there is a \u201cyearning\u201d among their colleagues for a Fianna F\u00e1il contestant in the field.<\/p>\n

Mr Martin is understood to be continuing to take soundings and talk to potential candidates, though former Air Corps officer and Dublin football manager Jim Gavin is favoured by some as someone with wide appeal. Mr Gavin could not be reached for comment on Monday. <\/p>\n

Sources said the party is some way off a decision, though they played down the prospects of law professor S\u00edofra O\u2019Leary, former judge of the European Court of Human Rights, being tapped for the role. <\/p>\n

Irish Times journalist Kate Byrne explains the mechanics behind the 2025 Presidential election. <\/p>\n

None of the names previously touted as potential Fianna F\u00e1il candidates, including former ministers Mary Hanafin and \u00c9amon \u00d3 Cu\u00edv, ex-SDLP leader Colum Eastwood and the Northern Ireland academic Deirdre Heenan, are likely to be favoured by the leadership, sources said.<\/p>\n

But there was some enthusiasm for Mr Gavin among TDs on Monday, with one minister speculating that his position in Dublin would give him a geographic advantage. Mr Gavin, who headed an internal GAA Football Review Committee, is also credited with the new rules which have revived Gaelic football this year.<\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a>, meanwhile, continues to keep its intentions to itself. The party said there is no meeting of the ruling ardchomhairle scheduled yet and there is no expectation of a decision on a candidate this week. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Local authorities are ready to listen to presidential hopefuls. Don\u2019t discount this routeOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The view in Sinn F\u00e9in is that it is \u201ceminently sensible\u201d to hold off until September and leave less time for a prospective candidate to be exposed to media scrutiny. Party leader Mary Lou McDonald<\/a> again declined to confirm<\/a> or deny her possible candidacy at the weekend, telling the BBC that \u201call options are on the table\u201d.<\/p>\n

The coming weeks are also likely to see the focus shift to local authorities, where independent candidates may seek nominations.<\/p>\n

Businessman Gareth Sheridan\u2019s campaign has claimed it has active interest from 12 local authorities that are open to hearing from independent candidates.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Mr Sheridan\u2019s campaign said councils have indicated they would be open to hearing pitches from prospective candidates, most likely between September 8th and 20th. The spokesman said most local authorities will not have exact dates until the date of the presidential election is announced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fianna F\u00e1il leadership remains strongly opposed to the possibility of former taoiseach Bertie Ahern becoming the party\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23719,"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-23718","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\/23718","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=23718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}