Cork MEP Billy Kelleher has claimed that he would have gone on to win the presidency had he been chosen ahead of Jim Gavin as Fianna Fáil’s candidate.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin and deputy party leader Jack Chambers strongly supported Mr Gavin, but he stepped aside three weeks before the vote after it emerged that he owed €3,300 in overpaid rent to a former tenant, reports Breaking News.
Mr Kelleher had also pursued the nomination and was supported by several senior party figures, however Mr Martin’s endorsement of Mr Gavin helped the former Dublin football manager secure the nomination.
Speaking in an interview with the *Irish Examiner*, Mr Kelleher said he was confident he could have defeated both President Catherine Connolly and Fine Gael candidate Heather Humphreys, reports Breaking News.
“I believe that I would be reflective of a modern Ireland, and I think that a lot of people would have engaged with me and supported me in that,” Mr Kelleher said.
“Unfortunately, let’s be honest, we ended up in a situation where, towards the end, it was basically a one-horse race. The public, because of what happened, they didn’t have enough choice,” Mr Kelleher said, reports Breaking News.
He also spoke positively about President Connolly and said he wished her well in Áras an Uachtaráin.
“I’m a fair-minded person. You have to judge a person over a period of time. She’s started out very well,” he said, referring to her recent meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy. I’m quite sure that she will be a fine president,” he said, reports Breaking News.
He also warned that relations between Ireland and the United States were at a precarious stage, as the Trump administration continues to adopt increasingly isolationist policies.
Mr Kelleher also referenced the ongoing debate surrounding a United Ireland, reports Breaking News.
“We reference America’s relationship with Europe, I think the Irish President will be a critically important role that could be played there to maintain links between Ireland and the United States. It would have been something that I would have been really looking forward to. We do have to start broadening out that debate around what a new Ireland looks like, in terms of the Good Friday Agreement, the respect for those in the North who would like to reside in a United Ireland. They’re as entitled to articulate that position as a person in the North who’d like to reside in the UK,” reports Breaking News.
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