REACTION:DAVID NORRIS'S day began with a hearty breakfast in his Dublin home and ended with a graceful exit from the election. He felt no bitterness after a bruising campaign, he said, although there was a certain amount of hurt.
“Joyce had a wonderful phrase, ‘the seeker of the nest of evil in the bosom of a good word’. I became the victim of that kind of attitude.”
He had had his own victory on Thursday night when he was presented with the Dubliner of the Year award in the Mansion House.
It was a boost to his spirits yesterday morning, he said.
Norris and members of his election team went to the RDS to observe the opening of the ballot boxes and later to Leinster House.
He followed that with some radio interviews and consideration of the tally figures. By mid-afternoon, he was sipping tea in the Gresham hotel, near his North Great George’s Street home.
“I think Michael D will be a great president,” he said. “He has been a friend and political associate for many years.” Norris revealed that he had given his second preference to Higgins.
He thanked all his volunteers, “remarkable people who worked to the limits, standing in the cold waiting for me to arrive in country towns”.
He said that it had been a dirty campaign. “Inaccurate and very damaging statements were made about me in sections of the media.
“I have had apologies, but it is too little, too late. If I do not make the quota, it will be clearly because of the action of some newspaper editors and journalists.”
He said reaching the all-important quota to be eligible for State funding was on a knife-edge.
“If I don’t, I lose my entire life’s savings, [I’ll] be overdrawn in the bank and have to pay back a considerable loan.” But he was philosophical. “It only puts me in the same situation as so many other people in the country.” He would only say the loan was “very large”.
