Senator likely to get United Left Alliance support

INDEPENDENT SENATOR David Norris is likely to have the support of TDs elected under the United Left Alliance banner in his bid to secure a nomination to contest the presidency.

People Before Profit (PBP) deputy Richard Boyd-Barrett said the five ULA TDs would have liked to see the emergence of a candidate explicitly associated with opposition to the EU-IMF bailout deal.

“In the absence of that I think we would support David Norris and certainly want to facilitate him getting on the ballot paper. That would be the view within the ULA.”

Mr Boyd-Barrett said he believed Mr Norris had been treated unfairly, and that his comments about sexuality had been “sensationalised”.

The other ULA TDs are the Socialist Party’s Joe Higgins and Clare Daly, Joan Collins of PBP, and Seamus Healy of the Unemployed Action Group in Tipperary South.

Independent TDs who had previously gone public with their intention to support Mr Norris and who continued to back him yesterday included Stephen Donnelly, Finian McGrath, Catherine Murphy, Maureen O’Sullivan and Thomas Pringle.

Mick Wallace and Luke “Ming” Flanagan, who have previously said they would facilitate the nomination of Mr Norris, could not be contacted, although there was no indication they had changed their stance.

Potential presidential candidates need the support of 20 Oireachtas members, or four county councils, to get a nomination.

Mr Norris will meet a newly formed group of non-party Senators within the next 10 days. The independent group is made up of seven recently-appointed Taoiseach nominees, lead by Senator Jillian van Turnhout, chief executive of the Children’s Rights Alliance.

Ms van Turnhout said: “What we’ve told people is that while we would meet them as a group we will not be nominating as a group.

“It’s up to each individual member to decide if they wish to nominate someone and, if so, who,” she said.

The other members are Martin McAleese, Eamonn Coghlan, Marie-Louise O’Donnell, Fiach Mac Conghail, Mary-Ann O’Brien and Katherine Zappone.

On Monday Mr Norris will address three councils: Wexford County Council, Waterford City and Carlow County Council.

Carlow Fine Gael councillor Denis Foley said: “I respect Mr Norris’s democratic right to look for a nomination but I won’t be helping him along the way. He’s not a Fine Gael man. We’ve been asked by our party and headquarters to look after whoever our own nominee is going to be.”

Council chairman William Paton of Labour said: “He simply has an invitation to come and address the council. I wouldn’t expect anything to come of it. The nomination season isn’t open.”

The situation is similar in Wexford, where Fine Gael councillor Pat Codd said: “We’re under the whip not to support anybody but our own.”

Labour councillor Pat Cody said his party’s group on the council was meeting tomorrow to discuss its approach. “The official line is we have a free hand.”