The Dublin businessman has made an impression on Kerry\u2019s independent councillors during his election campaign\n<\/p>\n
Councillors Jackie Healy-Rae and Teddy Casey O\u2019Sullivan have expressed their support for the Dublin businessman, while councillors Charlie Farrelly, Sam Locke and Dan McCarthy see him as one of their favourites.<\/p>\n
To be eligible for the presidency, a candidate must either secure 20 endorsements in the Oireachtas, be the incumbent president or gain a majority in four counties.<\/p>\n
Cllr Jackie Healy-Rae said he will likely vote for Sheridan to give him a chance to make his pitch to the nation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m giving serious consideration to paving the way for Gareth Sheridan. In my mind he did everything right, he contacted me weeks ago and he came to Kerry to meet me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know enough about him to know that he\u2019s a serious candidate. He\u2019s taking it seriously and he\u2019s proving that by his actions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to allow him to be put before the people.\u201d<\/p>\n
At age 35, the founder of Nutriband and multi-millionaire would be the youngest ever presidential candidate if he is able to get on the ticket. During his pitch to the council, he said he wanted to create a successful Ireland that can be handed down to the next generation.<\/p>\n
He urged councillors to use their constitutional right to exercise their vote, and not to make it the preserve of political parties.<\/p>\n
“Its the perfect time for a young president,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Among the other pitches favoured by the non-party councillors was solicitor Nick Delehanty, and barrister and conservative campaigner Maria Steen.<\/p>\n
Councillor Charlie Farrelly said these two and Mr Sheridan were the only candidates that contacted him prior to the council meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cIts between those three that I\u2019ll vote. I hope we put one forward next Monday,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Though Fine Gael councillors have been instructed to only nominate their party\u2019s ratified candidate and a similar pattern is expected from Fianna F\u00e1il members, there is hope that some may abstain from the vote.<\/p>\n
In Kerry independents make up the biggest fraction of local councillors so there is still a possibility of independent candidate being nominated even if party-affiliated candidates tow the line.<\/p>\n
Mr Sheridan said at Monday\u2019s conference that he was \u201cfrustrated\u201d by Fine Gael\u2019s decision to block independents.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it has happened in my lifetime. I\u2019m troubled in a way that it will create a system where people will only be able to consider candidates that will come from within the walls of Leinster House. I think it\u2019s a sentiment that resonates with a lot of people. I think it\u2019s a dangerous precedent to set,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The full council will gather on Monday to vote for their preferred candidate.<\/p>\n
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dublin businessman has made an impression on Kerry\u2019s independent councillors during his election campaign Councillors Jackie Healy-Rae…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[40653,9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,59,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-56164","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-alastair-tibbs","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-presidential-election","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56164","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=56164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}