{"id":81937,"date":"2025-09-23T22:26:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T22:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/81937\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T22:26:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T22:26:07","slug":"maria-steen-hopeful-she-can-still-get-on-ballot-paper-for-presidential-election-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/81937\/","title":{"rendered":"Maria Steen \u2018hopeful\u2019 she can still get on ballot paper for presidential election \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Conservative campaigner Maria Steen<\/a> was on Tuesday night \u201cvery hopeful\u201d she could make it on to the ballot paper for next month\u2019s presidential election<\/a>, despite key Independent politicians declining to offer her their support. <\/p>\n

Ms Steen will now need an 11th-hour intervention from three TDs or Senators if she is to be nominated to enter the race to succeed Michael D Higgins<\/a> before Wednesday\u2019s noon deadline. <\/p>\n

The Iona Institute<\/a> campaigner and stay-at-home mother said \u201ctime is running out\u201d to reach the threshold of 20 nominations from Oireachtas members. <\/p>\n

Ms Steen received a boost to her campaign on Tuesday when four Independent Ireland TDs and Independents Marian Harkin and Danny Healy-Rae publicly said they would support her bid<\/a> to get on the ballot. <\/p>\n

This brought her to 17 nominations, with supporters in Leinster House claiming an 18th politician was also willing to come on board. <\/p>\n

Independent Ireland appealed to other Independents to consider doing likewise \u201cand facilitate democracy\u201d by signing the nomination papers. <\/p>\n

However, more endorsements failed to materialise later in the day, with a number of senators declining to agree to sign Ms Steen\u2019s nomination papers. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Maria Steen: The Iona Institute barrister hoping to become president of Ireland<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Independent Senator Gerard Craughwell, who has met Ms Steen, said she was a \u201cvery fine lady who under normal circumstances one would like to support\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, I have advised her I cannot,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Independent Senator Michael McDowell<\/a>, who successfully campaigned against last year\u2019s family and care referendums with Ms Steen, is understood to not be engaging with those lobbying on her behalf.<\/p>\n

She told RT\u00c9\u2019s Six One news she had not talked to Mr McDowell yet, but was \u201chopeful that he will come on board\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t agree on everything, but we actually have many things that we do agree on, so I think I\u2019d be very grateful for his support,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Ms Steen said she remained \u201cvery hopeful\u201d she would secure the required support after making \u201cgood progress\u201d during the day. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy to take a nomination from anybody who\u2019s willing to give it to me, and I am available to talk to everybody and meet if they would like to,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Ms Steen said there were \u201cstill a few Independent Senators that I haven\u2019t yet met, and if there are other party members who are willing to break ranks, I\u2019m more than willing to meet them too\u201d.<\/p>\n

Independent Senators Aubrey McCarthy and Victor Boyhan have declined to back Ms Steen publicly, despite an intensive lobbying effort organised on social media by her supporters. <\/p>\n

Independent Minister of State Michael Healy-Rae<\/a> agreed to sign Ms Steen\u2019s nomination papers last Friday, but his Government-supporting colleagues Se\u00e1n Canney, Noel Grealish and Kevin \u201cBoxer\u201d Moran have not followed suit.<\/p>\n

Ms Steen was asked on Tuesday to clarify her relationship with a man identified as posting online rumours about Fianna F\u00e1il candidate Jim Gavin<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Kieran Kelly, a right-wing environmentalist and \u201cTrump loyalist\u201d, claimed he had a phone call with Ms Steen about her candidacy. <\/p>\n

Ms Steen said she had been \u201cgetting calls from lots of different people who I have never met before and have never spoken to before\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a call with Kieran Kelly. He mentioned nothing about Jim Gavin<\/a> or any other candidate to me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Conservative campaigner Maria Steen was on Tuesday night \u201cvery hopeful\u201d she could make it on to the ballot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,49414,18,13,14,6,19,7062,54812,17,11,12,15,16,30253,54165,1874,54811,5,59,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-81937","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-danny-healy-rae","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-independent-ireland","17":"tag-iona-institute","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-latest-news","20":"tag-latestnews","21":"tag-main-news","22":"tag-mainnews","23":"tag-maria-steen","24":"tag-marian-harkin","25":"tag-michael-d-higgins","26":"tag-michael-mcdowell","27":"tag-news","28":"tag-presidential-election","29":"tag-top-stories","30":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81937","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=81937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}