Sinn Féin take time to name Áras hopeful
Widow Geraldine Finucane in frame
SINN Féin is expected to take as long as a month to name a candidate for the Presidential election, strengthening the hand of Michael D Higgins as he campaigns for a second term in the role.
Up to half a dozen names will likely be put forward by regional and local party organisations to an August meeting of Sinn Féin’s ard comhairle to select one candidate.
Sinn Féin is considering Geraldine Finucane, widow of murdered Belfast solicitor Patrick, as a way of highlighting Britain’s broken pledge to hold a public inquiry into his killing by loyalists in circumstances of alleged collusion.
But the party is not discussing specific names, and says the final nominee will be ‘most likely from within the party’ – which Ms Finucane is not.
No internal candidate is yet offering themselves despite speculation over MEPs Lynn Boylan and Liadh Ní Riada, with party leader Mary Lou McDonald preferring a female candidate.
Yesterday Ms Boylan ruled herself out, telling Dublin City FM that ‘I am not’ running, adding that she had not been asked.
She said: ‘The work that I want
‘Once you contest, you go in to win’
to continue is out in Brussels.’
There are some who feel Ms McDonald herself could be nominated – and it may even make sense for her to run, assuming she was not in fact elected.
But Sinn Féin TD David Cullinane said: ‘Once you contest an election, you go in to win.’
He is chairman of an organisational committee drawing up the rules for a nomination process, and said yesterday: ‘I’m not going to speculate on names, because it isn’t fair on anybody.’
Mr Cullinane firmly ruled out the prospect of the party running two candidates – for example, Southern and Northern running mates, with one acting as ‘sweeper’ for the other.
He and his committee will report to the ard comhairle in ten days after it decided on Saturday that Sinn Féin would contest the election.
It will likely then approve a process of two weeks for meetings to be held and suggested candidates to be put forward. Mr Cullinane said the timeframe would have to be ‘as tight as possible’ while allowing party organisations the space needed.
‘It will take at least three or four weeks before we select a candidate,’ he said. It would then be a matter of matching the best candidate to ‘the type of campaign’ that Sinn Féin wants to run, Mr Cullinane added.
Ms McDonald has stated the campaign would seek to ‘advance Irish unity’, which might point to a Northerner who is well-known and accepted in the South. In 2011 the party chose Martin McGuinness, who came third.
Meanwhile, a crock of gold could be on offer to community groups from Senator Gerard Craughwell, should he be elected. Senator Craughwell has said he would donate ‘upwards of €100,000’ of the presidential salary to worthy causes if he were elected in October.
The Independent politician described the Presidential salary of €250,000 a year as ‘outrageous’ – even though it has fallen from €400,000 before the crash.
‘It is more money than I could have ever dreamt of earning either as a security officer or as a soldier,’ Senator Craughwell – referring to his previous employment – told Eamon Keane on Waterford’s WLR FM . ‘You work damn hard for minimum wage so I can understand people’s annoyance [at the Presidential salary]. I earn €66,000 a year here as a senator. I’m not hungry and I don’t suffer.’
Senator Craughwell added that the Presidency ‘needs to be refocused to become inwardlooking in Ireland, looking at some of the serious issues there are in this country’.