Up and running: Presidential candidates kick off their campaigns

Nominations for the presidential election officially closed at noon on Wednesday, with six candidates on the official ballot paper.

Within hours of the nominations closing, the campaigns of all six candidates were fully under way, with the incumbent, President Michael D Higgins, launching his campaign in Dublin city centre on Wednesday afternoon.

The six candidates are: Mr Higgins, Seán Gallagher, Liadh Ní Riada, Peter Casey, Gavin Duffy and Senator Joan Freeman.

In a late effort, a seventh potential candidate, journalist Gemma O’Doherty, tried to persuade 20 members of the Oireachtas to support her nomination before the noon deadline.

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However, in a tweet Ms O’Doherty disclosed she had received the backing of 11 TDs and Senators: Joan Collins, Clare Daly, Mick Wallace, Catherine Connolly, Michael Fitzmaurice, Seán Canney, Tommy Broughan, Séamus Healy, Maureen O’Sullivan, Mattie McGrath and Rónán Mullen.

It is understood that a small number of others might have been willing to sign her nomination paper but were not in a position to do so before the deadline.

The first broadcast debate of the campaign will take place today on RTÉ's News at One but neither President Higgins nor Seán Gallagher will be taking part.

Without logo

The Sinn Féin candidate Liadh Ní Riada’s posters began appearing throughout the State yesterday, but without her party’s logo.

Asked about the absence of the logo on the posters, she told RTÉ that while she was honoured to be a Sinn Féin candidate, she wanted to be a “president for all the people”.

She said the absence of a reference to her party represented a “fresh approach and a new approach”.

Under repeated questioning on Drivetime about her comments about the HPV vaccine against cervical cancer (for teenage girls), she said she fully supported the vaccine but refused to divulge if her own teenage daughters had received it, citing their rights to privacy.

The businessman Peter Casey, in a separate interview, said his suggestion that an incident involving an intruder in Áras an Uachtaráin was a stunt was said “tongue-in-cheek” but he added: “Seven years without a security breach and then we have one a week before an election campaign.”

Starting a family

Seán Gallagher told the broadcaster that he had spent the past seven years starting a family, rebuilding his own life, focusing on business and writing for The Sunday Independent.

“Over the last seven years I have been involved in many substantial issues. I am not always tweeting and they are not always in the public eye,” he said.

There have been questions raised during the campaign about Mr Gallagher’s absence from public life in the past seven years.

Gavin Duffy defended a plan he had to set up a programme that would have young people aged between 18 and 25 involved in an “Irish corps” and work on aid and projects in the developing world.

The election will take place on October 26th with the new president being inaugurated on November 11th.