I don’t care who wins the Áras race but I predict a Shinners victory, even if they lose

NOTHING is ever likely to change my view that the office of Uachtarán na hÉireann is completely and utterly irrelevant.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I have long been of the opinion that the Presidency is no fit job for any self-respecting adult. It’s a cushy sinecure, of course, but I still can’t see why anyone would want to take on the role. I’d imagine it must be boring beyond belief.

It certainly doesn’t seem to require anything in the way of qualifications or a particular set of skills, which probably explains why the likes of Ronan Keating and Brian McFadden both floated themselves as potential candidates in the past. From what I can work out, the job spec involves little more than being able to say ‘Hello, very pleased to meet you’ in three or four different languages and knowing which cutlery to use at the banquet table.

Yet we are constantly told how well we have been served by the various incumbents down through the years. I’m still not quite sure what exactly that is supposed to mean.

The first President I can really remember in office was the late Paddy Hillery, an inoffensive sort of man who largely kept out of harm’s way by working on his golf handicap. Fast forward to 1990 and the election of Mary Robinson was hailed as some sort of watershed moment for women.

It actually turned out to be more of a groundbreaking event for Mrs Robinson herself, who resigned early when the United Nations came up with a better offer. That was followed by 14 years of the hard-nosed Mary McAleese successfully reinventing herself as a sort of earth mother figure.

Bruising

Now we have had Michael D Higgins for almost seven years and are facing the prospect of seven more. It is of course his prerogative to seek a second term in office, even if that’s exactly what he promised not to do.

Due to a strong consensus across the political spectrum in favour of him remaining in the Áras, it seems likely Mr Higgins was expecting to be re-elected unopposed. But with Sinn Féin set to field a candidate, there will now of course be a contest.

If the 2011 election is any sort of a yardstick, it will be a bruising affair. It shouldn’t be forgotten that Mr Higgins essentially won by default back then because he was practically the last man standing at the end of it all.

Of course, it is highly likely that he will see off the Sinn Féin candidate and any other challengers. But does he really want to put himself through a gruelling and potentially fraught campaign at the age of 77?

It is hard to avoid thinking that he might end up being sorry he didn’t call it a day after one term.

On a broader level, it is even more likely that the parties supporting him – Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Labour – will live to regret it.

Look at the reality. The Sinn Féin organisation now has almost 30 representatives in the Houses of the Oireachtas, something that was almost unthinkable only a few short years ago.

Whether we like it or not, the party is set to make significant electoral gains in the years ahead. The fact that Gerry Adams is no longer centre stage gives the trenchantly republican party’s critics one less stick to beat it with. Meanwhile, there are several bright, articulate front-bench performers who are untainted by any personal connection to the so-called armed struggle.

It is also worth noting that Sinn Féin is surprisingly good at knowing which buttons to push. Speaking about the Áras contest, David Cullinane – the chairman of the party’s presidential election committee – said at the weekend: ‘We want this to be about the future of Ireland and a discussion about what type of society we want.’

He added: ‘There are still massive issues in relation to gender pay and the patriarchal society women still live under. Women and men are demanding more social change and we want to see that.’

That’s the sort of talk that is already attracting an increasing number of middle-class voters to Sinn Féin. We’ve previously seen how the party totally outflanked Labour in many working-class areas by simply getting involved in community activism.

Nobody realistically expects Sinn Féin to come out tops on this occasion, even if Mr Cullinane insists that they are ‘in this to win’. But there is a far bigger prize at stake here in terms of future Dáil numbers.

Petulant

My own view is that the political establishment has misjudged the public mood. Regardless of Mr Higgins’s record in the Áras, nobody who saw him on the RTÉ News earlier this month can fail to have noticed his obvious sense of entitlement. His petulant tone also struck a jarring chord.

Nor, frankly, did his justification for seeking a second term come across as remotely convincing. He just sounded like another public representative going back on his word.

So if even, say, 10% of the people who are disillusioned with Mr Higgins vote for the Sinn Féin candidate instead, it will be a major result. Granted, it almost certainly won’t be enough to change the widely expected outcome.

But that isn’t really what is important here. If that 10% sticks with Sinn Féin when the next general election comes around, it will have serious implications for the make-up of the next government. And the big losers will be Labour and, to a lesser extent, Fianna Fáil.

There seems little doubt that it suited most parties to allow Mr Higgins to remain as President for another seven years. It avoided the need for a costly election campaign and, as is often the way in these matters, short-term considerations won out. But they all seemed to forget that Sinn Féin are masters at playing the long game.

The momentum is gathering. Even though the party won’t be announcing its candidate until September, there is already a considerable level of public interest.

So the stage is set for an interesting battle. Even though it is a contest that Mary Lou McDonald and her party are unlikely to win, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that they have already got one over on their opponents.

Due to the fact that I see the Presidency as a redundant role, I don’t vote in Áras elections. But even if I usually did, I’d be sorely tempted to give it a miss this time around. I certainly wouldn’t be seeking out Michael D Higgins’s name on the ballot paper – or, for that matter, businessman Gavin Duffy’s either.

Nor, though, would I be able to bring myself to vote for Sinn Féin. But plenty of others will.