{"id":39317,"date":"2025-09-02T19:52:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T19:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/39317\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T19:52:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T19:52:07","slug":"fianna-fail-mep-billy-kelleher-secures-enough-support-to-bid-for-partys-presidential-nomination-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/39317\/","title":{"rendered":"Fianna F\u00e1il MEP Billy Kelleher secures enough support to bid for party\u2019s presidential nomination \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a> is set to have an internal contest to select its presidential candidate as MEP Billy Kelleher<\/a> says he has enough nominations to enter the race.<\/p>\n

Former Dublin football manager Jim Gavin<\/a> enjoys the declared support of 24 members of the parliamentary party, including Taoiseach and party leader Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a>, and all senior Cabinet Ministers. <\/p>\n

Minister of State Thomas Byrne<\/a> is the latest prominent Fianna F\u00e1il politician to confirm support for Mr Gavin. <\/p>\n

So far Mr Kelleher has just three party colleagues who have publicly declared support for him – MEP Barry Andrews, TD P\u00e1draig O\u2019Sullivan and Senator Paul Daly.<\/p>\n

Former taoiseach Bertie Ahern<\/a> has one declared supporter in Senator Niall Blaney, should he seek to enter the race.<\/p>\n

However, 42 Fianna F\u00e1il representatives have not made public declarations of support for either Mr Gavin or Mr Kelleher.<\/p>\n

A vote among Fianna F\u00e1il\u2019s 71-strong parliamentary party to select its presidential candidate is to take place next Tuesday by secret ballot.<\/p>\n

Mr Kelleher and his backers hope to pick up support among the ranks of their undeclared colleagues.<\/p>\n

Potential Fianna F\u00e1il candidates need five nominations from parliamentary party members to enter the internal selection contest.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Billy Kelleher allies believe there is \u2018route to win\u2019 Fianna F\u00e1il presidential nomination, despite Jim Gavin\u2019s leadOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Mr Kelleher told The Irish Times: \u201cI have been nominated with more than sufficient numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n

He declined to say which colleagues are nominating him, saying: \u201cThe fact of the matter is some people declare, some people don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very comfortable with the reception I\u2019m getting and the fact that there\u2019s quite a substantial number of TDs and Senators have not expressed a view and are open for discussion, willing to meet.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cUltimately, I\u2019ll be going to the parliamentary party confident that I will have sufficient numbers to be selected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regarding what he will tell colleagues on why he should be president, Mr Kelleher spoke about how he has been \u201cin public life\u201d since 1992 and has \u201cstood for\u201d Fianna F\u00e1il values.<\/p>\n

He said he has been consistently elected as a TD in Cork North Central, spent time as the party\u2019s health spokesman, and took stances in favour of the successful \u201cYes\u201d sides in the referendums on marriage equality and the Repeal the Eighth Amendment on abortion. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Fianna F\u00e1il\u2019s secret ballot on presidential candidate could yet prove unpredictableOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

During his time in the European Parliament, he has been vocal on Palestine and Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Mr Kelleher said: \u201cI feel I can be adjudicated in a positive manner by my colleagues, but more importantly, if they select me, I can then start engaging with the broader electorate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen we can start outlining our plan for the presidency, what it entails,\u201d he continued, referring to \u201chow we can make it evolve into what is needed for the new Ireland that\u2019s developing in front of our eyes\u201d.<\/p>\n

Asked whether he had any concerns about Mr Gavin\u2019s support from the party leader and other senior figures, Mr Kelleher said: \u201cAll I can do is face what is in front of me.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact of the matter is that 70 of my parliamentary colleagues will make a decision next Tuesday. I\u2019ve been nominated. Jim Gavin has been nominated. There may be others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Kelleher said he would seek to convince enough of his colleagues that he is \u201cbest placed to represent the party and broaden the appeal of the party to win the presidential election in October\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fianna F\u00e1il is set to have an internal contest to select its presidential candidate as MEP Billy Kelleher…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[15526,9316,9,10,18,13,14,4771,6,19,17,19487,11,12,15,16,5765,5,59,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-39317","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-bertie-ahern","9":"tag-billy-kelleher","10":"tag-breaking-news","11":"tag-breakingnews","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-fianna-fail","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-jim-gavin","20":"tag-latest-news","21":"tag-latestnews","22":"tag-main-news","23":"tag-mainnews","24":"tag-micheal-martin","25":"tag-news","26":"tag-presidential-election","27":"tag-top-stories","28":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39317","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=39317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}