Fergus Finlay ‘very disappointed’ Labour is backing Catherine Connolly for presidency

Labour Party grandee Fergus Finlay asked Ivana Bacik in January if he could run for President for the party.

Mr Finlay, who had also sought the party’s nomination for the 2011 contest and considered a run in 2018, said he was “very disappointed” to see Labour supporting Catherine Connolly.

The former head of Mary Robinson’s historic 1990 campaign said he did not know what Ms Connolly had done to “deserve” the Labour Party’s support.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Behind The Story podcast this week, Mr Finlay revealed he had approached party leader Ms Bacik in January indicating he was open to running for President.

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“I wanted to say that Labour should contest, must contest, must do everything we possibly can to contest, recognising all the difficulties that we don’t have 20 Oireachtas votes sewn up there. But there were a lot of Oireachtas votes in play at that time,” Mr Finlay said.

“There was no other left-wing candidate in the field at that time – I wanted to say that Labour should contest, and I wanted to be considered as a candidate.”

Mr Finlay, who added he felt no “entitlement to anything”, said it quickly became clear to him that his proposal was “going nowhere”.

“I think [Ms Bacik] felt that this was not a winnable situation for Labour. Maybe she felt it wasn’t winnable for Labour with me. Maybe she felt that I was a burned-out waste of space! I have no idea. She’s far too polite ever to say anything like that, but it became clear to me very quickly that it was going nowhere.”

Mr Finlay had lost out on the Labour Party’s nomination in 2010, ahead of Michael D Higgins winning his first term. Mr Finlay would also later reveal he had also considered putting himself forward in 2018, before it became clear to him that President Higgins would seek a second term.

Mr Finlay said he believed in the role of the President to “get the best out of people”, and that if he had a criticism of President Higgins it was that “he didn’t do enough of that”, particularly in terms of national morale during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mr Finlay said he was “very disappointed” that Labour had decided to row in behind Independent left-wing candidate Ms Connolly.

“There’s a lot of stuff I don’t agree with Catherine Connolly about, there’s a lot of stuff I admire her for. But Catherine Connolly left the Labour Party because we wouldn’t give her a nomination to run alongside Michael D Higgins, and she has never had a good word to say about the Labour Party from that moment on,” he said.

Mr Finlay said it would have been a “crazy, suicidal decision” to give Ms Connolly a nomination, which would have meant there was “no chance of anybody winning that seat”. He said Ms Connolly “couldn’t bring herself to accept that”, and she “has never had a good word to say about the Labour Party since”.

“And now we’re backing her. And I have no problem with members of the Labour Party going out and voting for Catherine Connolly, none in the wide, Earthly world. But I don’t know what she’s done to deserve our support, to be absolutely honest with you.”