MATT COOPER SO FAR, THIS IS NOT A CONTEST

TODAY’S opinion poll in this newspaper about the present voting intentions for a forthcoming Presidential election brought to my mind the late Bernie Murphy, one of the most unusual councillors ever elected to Cork Corporation (as the city council was known back in the mid1980s).

Murphy was a sandwich-board man who wandered up and down Patrick Street or the South Mall in the city centre, advertising the wares of local shops on the slabs of wood that hung off his front and back.

He was a man of limited education, intellect and income. He could not read or write. He drank a lot of the stout whose name he shared. He was vulnerable to mockery from young gougers and reacted often with wild language. He was not shy to ask people for money – and to berate them if they didn’t give it to him. He was a well-known figure around the city centre because of it.

Odds

In 1985, as the local elections loomed, Murphy decided to run as a candidate, and that he would be his own election agent. There were all sorts of rumours that Murphy’s campaign was being financed by locals who had a beef with Bernard Allen, the local Fine Gael TD and councillor (you could be both then) and who they wanted to beat. Initially nobody gave Murphy a chance of winning and the opening odds of 50/1 offered by one local bookmaker reflected that.

That decision was to cost Cashman Bookmakers over £20,000 (€25,000) when Murphy romped home on election day and a range of punters pocketed their winnings. Murphy had been positioned as ‘the people’s champion’ and got loads of publicity for his ‘different’ campaign.

Plenty of voters were happy to share in the apparent joke, to the horror of the local political establishment.

Cork was in the depths of a deep recession after the closure of many of the big manufacturers such as Ford and Dunlop, and many were cynical about the ‘twinning’ of the city with San Francisco. They didn’t see it as a legitimate effort to win investment for Cork, but merely as an opportunity for local politicians to junket in California at the taxpayers’ expense. Murphy’s election was their revenge.

That wasn’t the end of it, however. Murphy visited San Francisco in 1986, a trip partly organised by the famous American newspaper columnist Warren Hinckle. Murphy claimed that he had to go to California to get a new set of false teeth that were being denied to him by the Southern Health Board in Cork. (It, in turn, pointed out that he had failed to turn up to an appointment for their fitting.)

Murphy got his new dentures and then turned up at San Francisco City Hall with an empty suitcase – covered in shamrocks and other hackneyed Irish symbols – demanding millions in aid promised for Cork by Irish-American lobbyists. He was featured, somewhat embarrassingly, on CNN, coast to coast.

However, Murphy’s efforts in the 1987 general election to win a seat in both the Cork North Central and South Central constituencies gained only paltry support. He lost his corporation seat in the next election and died in 2007.

Unsuitable

Murphy came to mind in watching the procession of people who have been putting themselves forward to various county councils in recent weeks, seeking a nomination to be a candidate for the Presidency.

Let me emphasise that I’m not suggesting that any of those individuals in any way resemble Murphy – or are equally unsuitable for public office – but there has been a lot of stuff that comes close to his claiming to be a ‘people’s champion’ and which should make wary the councillors with the power to nominate for this far more prestigious position.

There have been promises to do things that are simply beyond the role of the Presidency, claims that suggest a lack of understanding of what is possible and suggestions that undermine its standing. Not surprisingly, it does not seem to have captured the public’s imagination, as today’s Irish Daily Mail/Ireland Thinks poll demonstrates.

The figures suggest that the electorate cares more about the dignity of the office than to entrust it to someone without a demonstrable track record of significant public service, irrespective of what claims, valid or not, they can make to excellence in their chosen careers.

Being likeable, or having a high regard for yourself, does not a President make. If we are to take elected public office seriously then candidates should have proven themselves in some way to be suitable and capable for the election they seek. When it comes to the Presidency some previous achievement in public life should be a prerequisite for receiving a nomination. This is more than a popularity contest, even if the vote reduces it somewhat to that.

Mess

Much has been made in recent months of the need to have a contested election, that a coronation of the incumbent, President Michael D Higgins, for the next seven years should not be facilitated, especially as it suits the financial needs of a political establishment that does not want to have an election. I’m very sympathetic to that. Higgins had made mistakes during his time as President and is breaking his pledge not to seek a second term. He should be made to win his reelection in a contest with serious opposition.

I blame Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, however, for the mess in which we find ourselves. They have been too clever by half in seeking to return Higgins to power at minimal cost to themselves (as they save their money for the next general election, whenever it is). Their fear of putting up a losing candidate is too great.

Fine Gael should have gambled on Enda Kenny – whom the job as national frontof-house man would probably suit – if he could be persuaded, whereas Micheál Martin’s decision not to field a Fianna Fáil candidate looks like a miscalculation.

In doing so the two main parties have handed the initiative to Sinn Féin, which will be putting up a candidate and will present itself as the standard bearer for a change that the other main political parties would not offer. Sinn Féin’s problem, however, remains coming up with an attractive candidate itself and ensuring there are not so many Independents in the field as to split the anti-Higgins vote.

We may have found out, by the time you read this, if Sean Gallagher, the runnerup seven years ago, is having another run, although it is likely that any effort would be coming from too far behind to have any significant chance of success, as today’s poll shows.

In any case Gallagher has been fooling himself if he thought that the wider electorate was waiting on tenterhooks for his decision. He, along with the other putative candidates who have declared, are not heavyweight options for the electorate to consider.

I know I’m giving a hostage to fortune here, but unless somebody with real substance steps forward to challenge Higgins then this Presidential election may be as predictable as Dublin football’s impending retention of the Sam Maguire for another year.