In the bitter recriminations and soul-searching that followed Donald Trump’s first election as US president in 2016, much blame fell on the media. Some commentators declared his election an outright failure of journalism. Others suggested responsibility lay with voters who told pollsters they thought he was unfit for office, but chose to back him anyway. The truth was somewhere in between. The media did expose his lies and his “pussy-grabbing” boasts. But they also gave him wall-to-wall coverage, and clung for far too long to the delusion that he didn’t really want to be president.
Gerard Hutch is no Donald Trump. But his candidacy, in a campaign that is so far struggling to engage voters, is a test case for how our media might behave should a Trump avatar emerge here. And so far, the results haven’t exactly been reassuring.
When Hutch arrived back into Dublin Airport – released on €100,000 bail from prison in Lanzarote, where he is under investigation for money laundering – he was met by a phalanx of reporters and photographers, the kind that normally assembles to greet a returning Olympian. What policies will you be running with, someone asked. “Ah,” he said, throwing his head back. “I don’t think it’s the appropriate place here to be talking about them.”
Why have you decided to run? “Not the appropriate place. Good luck,” he said, flabbergasted that anyone would have the cheek to ask someone running for public office what they might do if elected. He is said to claim he is “the people’s choice” who has been “asked to run”. It’s just a happy coincidence that Spain was obliged to release him to allow him to fulfil his democratic mandate.
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Hutch is so successfully laundering his reputation that some manufacturer of washing powder should immediately sign him up as a brand ambassador. When he pulled up on Thursday evening in a helmet and hi-vis jacket to lodge his papers, the media were there again to capture the moment for history. Paddy Corcoran, who is chairman of Corinthians Boxing Club in Summerhill in the inner city, said “he looks after the people in the north inner city who need help. He never looks for praise or anything.”
He has been described in the many articles, books and films about him over the years as a “Robin Hood” type figure; a “Don Corleone”; an “ordinary decent criminal”. Much has been made of his rigid self-discipline, innate cleverness, moderation in all things, the good work he has done for his community. These days, Hutch is said to claim that members of his wider family might be involved in criminality, but that he is “simply a sort of an elder within the family”. To listen to the guff being spouted about him – much of it seeming to emanate directly or indirectly from the man himself – he is the next Mary Robinson.
Although Hutch likes to present himself as floating far above the daily grind of criminality, he is head of the Hutch family which has been embroiled in the feud with the Kinahans that has claimed 18 lives since 2005
But to treat Hutch as a celebrity candidate would be a dangerous mistake. For all the amused coverage, the reason for his public profile is his prolific criminal record. By the time he was 18, he had 30 convictions for assault, larceny, joyriding, car theft and malicious damage. He once described his teens to Veronica Guerin: “We were kids then, doing jump-overs, shoplifting, robbing, burglaries. Anything that was going we did it. That was normal for any inner city kid then.” Well, no. Plenty of people grow up in deprived circumstances and manage to avoid the impulse to put a rock through a car window. As a teenager, he bragged to RTÉ: “If I see a handbag on a seat, I’ll smash the window and be away before anybody knows what’s going on. I don’t go near people walking along the street.” Not because he wanted to avoid terrorising them: “They don’t have any money on them. They’re not worth robbing.”
Hutch got his start in organised crime in a gang led by the notorious drug dealer Eamon Kelly, but he has long claimed to be anti-drugs – a view not shared by some gardaí. He’ll point out that his last conviction was in the 1980s – which is true, but doesn’t include his suspected involvement in the Brinks Allied robbery in 1995 or the Marino Mart robbery in 1987. He was never convicted, but coyly told RTÉ's Paul Reynolds in 2008, “if people say armed robberies, so be it. I mean, I was questioned about these robberies they’re talking about, so you let them decide, the people.”
Although Hutch likes to present himself as floating far above the daily grind of criminality, he is head of the Hutch family which has been embroiled in the feud with the Kinahans that has claimed 18 lives since 2005. Hutch was acquitted of the murder of David Byrne at the Regency Hotel in the Special Criminal Court last year, after a trial that mainly relied on the evidence of former Sinn Féin councillor and his one-time associate Jonathan Dowdall. The court found Dowdall was not a reliable witness, but said that it believed Hutch had control of the assault rifles used in the attack. He was never charged with that offence.
So far, there’s little detail of the platform on which he plans to run, beyond “any seat will do me. I’m not pushed.” A recent poll suggested he could get 8 per cent of the vote in Dublin Central, where he’s running against, among others, Mary Lou McDonald, Paschal Donohoe, Gary Gannon, Neasa Hourigan, Malachy Steenson and Clare Daly. It’s an open question whether he’s even serious about getting elected, or if this is just another wheeze to keep him out of prison. As Trump has demonstrated – twice – if he’s successful, his actual motivation won’t matter.
It would be foolish to underestimate him – and positively dangerous to treat him as a joke.