{"id":5009,"date":"2025-08-17T13:41:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T13:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/5009\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T13:41:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T13:41:09","slug":"heather-humphreys-giving-very-serious-thought-to-running-for-fine-gael-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/5009\/","title":{"rendered":"Heather Humphreys giving \u2018very serious\u2019 thought to running for Fine Gael \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fine Gael\u2019s<\/a> executive council is to meet on Monday evening to consider the presidential election<\/a> campaign as support grows inside and outside of the party for Heather Humphreys<\/a> to run.<\/p>\n

The former minister has yet to decide if she will seek the party\u2019s nomination to contest the election, but has said she is giving the matter \u201cvery serious consideration\u201d. She had ruled out the possibility in May.<\/p>\n

Ms Humphreys, who did not contest last year\u2019s general election, has emerged as the favourite to replace former MEP Mairead McGuinness<\/a>, who on Thursday announced she was stepping down as the Fine Gael candidate on health grounds.<\/p>\n

The party\u2019s executive council had been expected to meet on Sunday to consider its options, but a spokeswoman confirmed the meeting would instead take place on Monday evening. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo tell you the truth, I\u2019m giving a run very serious consideration. I\u2019m using my time to speak to the people I trust and the people who know me best, both inside and outside politics, before I make a final decision,\u201d she said in a statement to the Sunday Independent. <\/p>\n

A number of Independent politicians have come out in support of Ms Humphreys running to succeed Michael D Higgins<\/a>. Ministers of State Michael Healy-Rae<\/a>, Noel Grealish<\/a> and Se\u00e1n Canney<\/a> have said they would support her candidacy, noting her \u201cbroad\u201d appeal and ability to \u201cbring a lot of people together\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ms Humphreys is also understood to be the preferred candidate for a number of senior Fine Gael ministers. <\/p>\n

In order to be nominated, Ms Humphreys would need the support of at least 20 members of the parliamentary party, 25 councillors and five members of the executive council. It is understood she would easily secure the necessary backing. <\/p>\n

Fine Gael MEP Se\u00e1n Kelly<\/a>, a former GAA<\/a> president, on Saturday said he was weighing up his options about seeking the party\u2019s nomination after this week\u2019s news about Ms McGuinness. <\/p>\n

He said last month that he would not run, describing it as the \u201cmost difficult decision\u201d of his political life, but on Saturday told Newstalk<\/a> \u201cthe goalposts have changed\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Kelly said the discussion within Fine Gael on who it would now run as its candidate \u201chasn\u2019t started really\u201d out of respect for Ms McGuinness. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think next week will be time enough to reflect properly on that and take action, there\u2019s no rush,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Fine Gael MEP Regina Doherty, a member of the national executive, said there should be a contest if Mr Kelly and Ms Humphreys both put their names forward. <\/p>\n

She told RT\u00c9\u2019s This Week programme the time to have such a contest ahead of the election in the autumn was \u201ctight\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think we are conscious, obviously, that our original timeline was to officially launch our campaign at the beginning of the second week of September. Obviously, we\u2019re getting very close to that. So time is of the essence,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

She said the process to nominate a new candidate would be officially re-opened at Monday\u2019s national executive meeting and she expected Fine Gael politicians to start publicly declaring for individual candidates after that. <\/p>\n

Frances Fitzgerald<\/a>, a former minister for justice, has said she does not intend to contest the election and on Sunday said Ms Humphreys would \u201cmake a fantastic president\u201d. <\/p>\n

Independent Galway West TD Catherine Connolly<\/a> is currently the only candidate who has the required support to appear on the ballot paper. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fine Gael\u2019s executive council is to meet on Monday evening to consider the presidential election campaign as support…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,1921,18,13,14,553,554,5286,6,555,19,17,11,12,15,16,556,1874,5283,5,5287,5284,59,559,5285,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-5009","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-catherine-connolly","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-fine-gael","15":"tag-frances-fitzgerald","16":"tag-gaa","17":"tag-headlines","18":"tag-heather-humphreys","19":"tag-ie","20":"tag-ireland","21":"tag-latest-news","22":"tag-latestnews","23":"tag-main-news","24":"tag-mainnews","25":"tag-mairead-mcguinness","26":"tag-michael-d-higgins","27":"tag-michael-healy-rae","28":"tag-news","29":"tag-newstalk-radio","30":"tag-noel-grealish","31":"tag-presidential-election","32":"tag-sean-kelly","33":"tag-sean-canney","34":"tag-top-stories","35":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5009","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=5009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}