Now enter the third Dragon...
PETER Casey has become the sixth candidate to appear on the ballot paper for next month’s Presidential election.
The former Dragons’ Den star yesterday received the support of county councils in Limerick and Tipperary, giving him the required backing of four local authorities.
He now joins Sean Gallagher and Gavin Duffy as the third Dragons’ Den judge on the ballot. They will compete against mental health campaigner Senator Joan Freeman, Sinn Féin’s Liadh Ní Riadh and the current officeholder, President Michael D Higgins.
Mr Casey had told his mother as he emigrated to Australia in 1981 that he would return one day ‘to stand for President’. And last night he described fulfilling this promise as ‘humbling’.
If elected, Mr Casey has vowed not to personally take the hefty six-figure salary that comes with the office, and instead intends to distribute it to different councils on a monthly basis.
He says his ‘personal qualifications’ for the role include his experience as a family man, businessman, a ‘widely travelled person who has lived and worked abroad, and an astute observer of societies and how they function best’.
The three Dragons previously denied they were secretly working together, as Mr Casey’s late candidacy sparked speculation. He told the Mail he had not told Mr Gallagher or Mr Duffy of his plan to run and said he now looks forward to debating the pair in the contest, saying ‘it will be great’.
The 60-year-old revealed in recent days his relatively late entry was due to a diagnosis of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a neurological disease, telling the Irish Mail on Sunday he recently spent eight days in an isolation ward in Atlanta in the United States. Mr Casey told the Irish Daily Mail last night that his now-competitor, Sean Gallagher, paid a visit to him while he was in intensive care in the hospital. ‘He was in Atlanta and he popped in when I was there. He didn’t know I was in hospital, he just rang and said “Do you want to go for dinner?” and I said I’m actually in intensive care, I just had got out of the isolation ward.’
Mr Casey said his recent diagnosis will not affect his campaign, which he plans to kick off ‘aggressively’ early next week.
‘I don’t have the 90%-110% energy that I like to think I always have… but, no, I am feeling grand. I am a bit tired at the moment because it has been a long ten days. I’ve got a little break now, but then we [his team] start afresh and give ourselves all our goals, targets and objectives for the next four weeks,’ he added.
Mr Casey said he was ‘absolutely thrilled’ with the ‘great’ work from all his team, adding they have been ‘working incredibly hard’.
His campaign slogan will be ‘Small Country, Big Nation’.
There are now just six councils left to decide who they will nominate if they choose to back any of the remaining hopefuls at all.
‘Sean visited me in intensive care’