TV DRAGONS: WE ARE NOT CONSPIRING TO WIN ARAS

Businessmen deny they are working together

THE three Dragons vying to be President have denied they are secretly working together to win the race for their frontrunner Sean Gallagher. In a bizarre move, Peter Casey became the third star of Dragons’

Den to join the running yesterday, sparking speculation that this is a ploy to gain the maximum number of transfers for Mr Gallagher.

Political parties often run a second and third candidate in a constituency because it will ‘bring out’ the vote to get their main contender elected. All three businessmen-turned-reality TV stars flatly rejected suggestions that they were working in tandem, and the third Dragon, Gavin Duffy, told the Irish Daily Mail that ‘there’s definitely no coordinated plan’.

However, Larry Bass, chief executive of Shinawil, the TV production company behind Dragons’ Den, said it is ‘very strange’ that three people

from the show are running for President. Mr Bass told the Irish Times President Michael D Higgins must be favourite to win but Mr Gallagher had a ‘score to settle’ after coming second in the 2011 election.

There was widespread surprise when Derry native Mr Casey confirmed he was seeking a nomination yesterday morning.

Mr Duffy said: ‘I am surprised, I wasn’t expecting him to come into the race, there was speculation, of course about Sean Gallagher, and Sean had run previously, so I wasn’t surprised when he entered the race. But I was surprised about Peter Casey.’

Mr Gallagher came second to President Michael D Higgins in the 2011 Presidential election, having been the frontrunner until his campaign went into meltdown following close public scrutiny over his businesses and his connection to Fianna Fáil.

While Mr Duffy welcomed ‘all people into the field’, he doesn’t appear to fancy his former co-star, Mr Casey’s chance of securing a nomination. He believes just himself, Senator Joan Freeman and Mr Gallagher will graduate from that ‘very robust process’.

And while Mr Casey described Mr Duffy as a ‘very good, dear friend’, Mr Duffy was more lukewarm about his fellow Dragon. The pair had ‘worked on a programme together’, was how he fielded that question.

He said: ‘I know Peter and Peter knows me, he didn’t let me know he was doing this, it came as a surprise to me. There’s definitely no coordination between Peter and I

‘I know Peter and Peter knows me’

or Sean and I. We are going into a contest, I think Sean will get a nomination and we will be competing as I would be with any other candidates in the field.’

A source in the tightly run Gallagher camp also denied there was a coordinated Dragon camp.

Mr Casey, who is in the process of moving home to Ireland from the States, said he was inspired to make a bid for a nomination after visiting schools in Donegal, where the vast majority of the Leaving Certificate pupils told him they would emigrate after their exams.

He told the Mail: ‘When I left Ireland the first time, I actually told my mother, “Ah, I’ll be back one day, don’t worry, I’m going to stand for President.”

‘I came back twice a year, at least, from Australia, and when I moved to America, when my mother was alive, I would come back every month to Ireland and I would spend a couple of days with her up in Derry.’

His campaign slogan will be ‘Small Country, Big Nation’.

Having grown up in the North during the Troubles, Mr Casey said he is a nationalist, has never been a member of any political party and would like to see a united Ireland some day.

‘Nobody thinks it’s probably worth dying for these days, and I certainly don’t. But I would like to see a peaceful unification of Ireland,’ he said. When he lived in England during his student days in Birmingham he ‘wouldn’t vote for an English politician’.

He added: ‘I went to Australia and I didn’t like the fact that it was compulsory to vote so I ended up getting summonsed because I refused to vote, and I wrote on the ballot paper that I’d be quite happy to be the first person in the history of Australia to go to jail for not voting.’

He said he has since voted in ‘several’ polls in Ireland, including the last Presidential election.

He vowed not to take the hefty €325,000 salary if he is elected and instead distribute it to charities via county councils.

But Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan said this offer was ‘demeaning to the office’.

Mr Flanagan, who is backing the re-election of President Michael D Higgins, said: ‘It’s all very fine for a millionaire of some substance to make that decision. But elections and offices should not only be open for the wealthy people, they should be open to everybody.

‘For a candidate to say that they will forego the salary, that to my mind demeans the office,’ he said.

Asked if he was disappointed in the candidates challenging President Higgins, the minister replied: ‘I will be supporting Michael D.’

Mr Flanagan, who was director of elections for Fine Gael candidate Gay Mitchell, who won only 6% of the vote in 2011, said he is sure the President will reveal his plans for the next seven years shortly.

Submissions of motions to support Mr Gallagher have now been made in 12 county councils, as Longford and Cavan joined that growing list yesterday.

TV company chief Mr Bass said the three Dragons are running because they are ‘good with people and can read people’.

He said he was ‘waiting to see who else is going to join them’, speculating if there might be other Dragons.Ego played a factor too, he said, adding that it was ‘a prerequisite’ for politics.

He said: ‘They didn’t get where they are by being pussycats. This is a campaign in which people will have to put on their suits of armour.’

Comment – Page 14 emmajane.hade@dailymail.ie