Rules are rules and the Áras must play by them
IT WAS inevitable because of his fiery personality, his vivid politics and his self-admitted rage, that President Michael D Higgins would overstep the mark by ventilating his opinions on a whole range of pressing political problems, even one as gigantic as the war in Ukraine.
Our President was never really meant to say much at all – and proper order too. The government holds all executive authority with the President’s role simply to act as an expensive rubber-stamp on laws agreed by the Oireachtas.
The President’s only real power is the right to refuse dissolution of the Dáil for a taoiseach who has lost support in parliament to address the Oireachtas or the nation, and to refer laws to ensure their soundness of the constitutional issue. That’s it.
Problem is, Michael D simply can’t keep it zipped. In fairness, the role of the president was redefined, pulled and stretched – or expanded as the luvvy, liberal elites might put it – by Mary Robinson and this unwarranted personality change was built on by her successor, Mary McAleese.
The difficulty now is that we have a kind of tug-of-war between the government, on the one hand, and the Áras, on the other. This, in effect, is a usurpation of government authority in favour of the President, a power grab with zero legal basis.
It leads to confusion and unclear policy direction, even on an issue as crucial as Ukraine.
So when President Higgins suggested at the end of March that Ukraine should become a neutral country in the interests of peace, it drew an appropriately sharp rebuke from Tánaiste Leo Varadkar who said: ‘I think fundamentally that’s a decision for Ukraine.’
A spokesman for Taoiseach Micheál Martin agreed with Varadkar, while pandering to both the Áras and Michael D’s legions of arty/intellectual friends and trendy hangers-on by adding that Higgins was ‘perfectly entitled’ to articulate his views. Which, of course, he’s not – at least not as President.
The popular wish for an active, involved, encouraging and opinionated President – a President who influences and shapes public policy at home and abroad – may be one that is sincerely held. But it’s entirely disallowed under the current rules.