{"id":31300,"date":"2025-08-29T18:35:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T18:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/31300\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T18:35:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T18:35:07","slug":"jim-gavin-wins-backing-of-two-ff-ministers-as-bertie-ahern-declines-to-rule-himself-out-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/31300\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Gavin wins backing of two FF ministers as Bertie Ahern declines to rule himself out \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fianna F\u00e1il ministers Jack Chambers<\/a> and James Lawless<\/a> have expressed their support for former Dublin football manager Jim Gavin<\/a> as the battle for the party\u2019s presidential election nomination intensified on Friday.<\/p>\n

Former leader Bertie Ahern<\/a> declined to rule himself out of the contest, criticising the lack of clarity within the party on its approach.<\/p>\n

Fianna F\u00e1il MEP Billy Kelleher<\/a>, who expressed his plan to contest the nomination on Thursday, admitted the party leadership was surprised when he confirmed he would be seeking its support for his bid for the presidency.<\/p>\n

Fianna F\u00e1il has yet to decide on a nominee but Mr Gavin is understood to be the preferred choice of leadership. <\/p>\n

Mr Kelleher said that whatever the outcome, a contest would he \u201chealthy\u201d.<\/p>\n

He highlighted his service to the party as a TD, senator and MEP over a period spanning more than three decades and stressed that when he decided to throw his hat into the ring he \u201cwasn\u2019t aware of any other candidates coming forward\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said he did not know Mr Gavin well apart from his achievements with the Dublin senior football team, which won six All-Ireland titles under his stewardship, but he accepted that his potential rival was \u201csynonymous with success\u201d. <\/p>\n

Although his candidacy has yet to be officially confirmed, Mr Gavin won the backing of two of the party\u2019s most senior figures, the Minister for Public Expenditure Mr Chambers and the Minister for Further and Higher Education Mr Lawless.<\/p>\n

Mr Chambers described him as \u201ca person of integrity, humility and distinction with a strong record of public service throughout his life and career. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe has my full support,\u201d Mr Chambers added. \u201cAnd I believe he would make an exceptional President of Ireland\u201d. <\/p>\n

At the Kennedy Summer School in New Ross, Mr Lawless echoed that view and said \u201cwe need someone who understands the multilateral order relationship between states, international relations, the modern world and the challenges of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need someone that at home, can embody community values, social justice, and we need somebody that can combine those that understanding with leadership and public service. For me, Jim Gavin embodies all of those qualities.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also referenced Mr Gavin\u2019s time in the Defence Forces, leading missions in Chad and elsewhere, as well as with the GAA, the North East Inner City taskforce and the Citizens Assembly. <\/p>\n

Clare TD Cathal Crowe also said that Mr Gavin would have his \u201cfull and unequivocal backing\u201d. <\/p>\n

Former taoiseach Bertie Ahern said he was not ruling himself out of entering the race, although he would only answer \u201cGod knows\u201d when asked if he could get the support of the party and also convince the wider electorate to vote for him.<\/p>\n

Mr Ahern expressed disappointment that the Fianna F\u00e1il leadership had failed to confirm if it would support him despite him approaching key officials in December to ask if a \u201cdecision could be made early so we could organise ourselves\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said he had met officials on multiple occasions in the first six months of this year and said he had \u201cnever got the answer to the question which was whether the leadership would back me. It was a simple enough question and then I got an answer on the font page of the newspapers\u201d. <\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters at Glasnevin Cemetery where he was attending a Fianna F\u00e1il event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the death of \u00c9amon de Valera he said he would \u201cnever rule myself out. If you never rule yourself out, you\u2019re still in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if he would be willing to seek the Fianna F\u00e1il nomination against the wishes of Mr Martin and his leadership team, he repeated that he had not ruled himself out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fianna F\u00e1il ministers Jack Chambers and James Lawless have expressed their support for former Dublin football manager Jim…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31301,"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-31300","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\/31300","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=31300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}