President Higgins has created an unprecedented state of exception for himself

President Michael D Higgins used an interview in the Business Post on Sunday to launch an excoriating attack on the policy direction of the democratically-elected Government. He invoked phrases including “playing with fire” and a “dangerous drift” towards Nato as he criticised the planned Forum on Irish International Security Policy being held by the Department of Foreign Affairs this week.

Personalities were also in the firing line, as the forum chair Prof Louise Richardson was referred to in what were seen by some as disparaging terms. The President later apologised for what he called “throwaway remarks”. The withdrawal of the personal attack on Richardson, while leaving the substance of the political intervention intact, doubles down on the problem of the President’s intervention.

Its timing days before a public consultation organised by the Government cannot have been coincidental. The language used by the President – who is also Commander-in-Chief – which included references to “the admirals, the generals, the air force, the rest of it” seemed pejorative.

All that would be fair game from any elected politician. From the President it diminished the impartiality of the office, which the discharge of his constitutional functions requires.

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President Higgins has created a state of exception for himself. He is not simply above politics under the Constitution, he also enjoys undefined extra-constitutional influence in his position as president-intellectual. It is unprecedented, unaccountable and unconstitutional. It relies on the muscle of political popularity to enforce on an elected but politically enfeebled government. It is ultimately about who controls the street corner and frequently reduces Government Ministers to indignant powerlessness.

Passionate, sometimes poetic, but oftentimes soporifically academic, the President has crossed the line of what is appropriate several times. A year ago, he characterised housing policy as a “disaster”. In 2016, he described Fidel Castro as a “giant among global leaders”. That was news to those in his prisons or who had fled Cuba in droves. Think what you like about housing policy, but it is the elected Government that has a democratic mandate to govern. We have an elected Opposition, a vibrant civil society and a critical media to call out the mess.

The President has momentarily become emblematic of the exercise of a mode of authority against which he spent his political life railing

The President has a mandate too, but it is not to govern or make policy. He is the ultimate defender of the rights of the people under the Constitution. No Bill can become law until he signs it, and he must assess its constitutionality, and can after consulting the Council of State refer it to the Supreme Court. He can refuse a dissolution of the Dáil to a taoiseach who has lost his majority. To exercise these powers credibly he must be above politics, not mired in controversy. He cannot be blemished by questions of partiality.

The distance of president from policy is emphasised in the Constitution. Article 28:5:2 provides that the taoiseach shall keep the president generally informed on matters of domestic and international policy. In the event of the president exercising his prerogative to address the Oireachtas or the nation, article 13:7:3 requires that such a message or address must, however, have received the approval of the government.

Specifically on foreign policy the strictures are specific. The president must receive the permission of the government to leave the State. This is intended to ensure that the elected government alone is the arbiter of foreign policy. Our government decides on Ireland’s place in the world because we the people are ultimate arbiters. In that context, the President’s call on St Patrick’s Day 2022 for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine was interpreted by many as a demand for surrender in the face of Russian invasion. Pointedly on the day of the year when Ireland is centre stage globally, the President usurped the Government by advancing a separate foreign policy position of his own.

On defence, the purpose of the forum being held this week, the Constitution invests the president with the “supreme command of the Defence Forces”. Every officer holds their commission from him. No Irish government can become a junta because the president is a constitutional firewall. But the power of the presidency requires the restraint of the president to remain above the political fray, and to be impartial on issues that are for others to thrash out.

President Higgins’s intervention on Sunday was Paddy Donegan’s revenge. In October 1976, president Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh referred the Emergency Powers Bill to the Supreme Court. Donegan, who was then-defence minister, called the president and commander-in-chief a “thundering disgrace” in front of his own troops. Then-taoiseach Liam Cosgrave refused to dismiss Donegan. To protect the constitutional position of the presidency, including the right to refer legislation to the Supreme Court, Ó Dálaigh resigned. It was a foundational moment in the development of the presidency. It now feels constitutionally that the shoe is on the other foot. President Higgins should withdraw all of his remarks.

An Irish president is not a sovereign above the law. Deference to the office does not translate into imaginary powers. This is a presumption of power based on popular support and political reticence unseen since John Charles McQuaid. The President foolishly allowed himself to indulge the reflex of someone who believes they know better and has the right to insist he does. As the incumbent, he is responsible for the past, present and future of the office of president. On November 11th, 2025, his successor will be inaugurated. He cannot behave now as if he is still on the hustings because it changes the future as well as the present. The President has momentarily become emblematic of the exercise of a mode of authority against which he spent his political life railing.