The Labour Party has decided to support Independent TD Catherine Connolly in the upcoming presidential election race.
Labour’s decision was taken at a meeting of its TDs, Senators, its MEP and executive board on Thursday evening.
A statement from the party said the meeting was briefed on the party’s membership consultation process, which concluded earlier this week.
That consultation “showed a clear majority of members” in favour of supporting Ms Connolly’s bid for the presidency.
The meeting also appointed Dublin South West TD Ciarán Ahern as the Labour Party’s co-ordinator with Ms Connolly’s campaign.
Mr Ahern thanked party members who took part in the consultation, saying: “As a party that values democracy and equality, our membership is the driving force of our party and it was vital to hear their input on this important question.”
He said the party is supporting Ms Connolly as “the left candidate for the presidency” and said: “We are doing so in the spirit of supporting the development and growth of the left across the country and demonstrating that an alternative politics is possible here, a cause which our party leader Ivana Bacik has led and promoted over recent years.”
Mr Ahern also said: “While there are issues where we have differed with Deputy Connolly, we are determined that the social democratic values of equality, justice and tolerance should shape the presidency over the next seven years and follow the legacy of Michael D Higgins.”
He said: “We believe that Catherine Connolly shares those values, and has put them into practice during her political career.
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“Catherine will make an excellent president, campaigning and advocating for the common good.”
Ms Connolly was previously a Labour councillor before she left the party in 2006 when it denied her a chance to run in the 2007 general election as future president Michael D Higgins’s running mate.
First elected to the Dáil in 2016, Ms Connolly said at the time that Labour had “lost its soul”.
In recent weeks some Labour sources dismissed her fractious history with the party as being in the past.
Prospective candidates who wish to get on the presidential election ballot paper must have nominations from 20 Oireachtas members or four local authorities.
Ms Connolly announced her candidacy in July with the backing of left-wing parties the Social Democrats and People Before Profit along with a number of Independent Oireachtas members.
While she said at the time she had more than enough backers to get on the ballot paper, the addition of the Labour Party will put her comfortably over the 20 Oireachtas-member threshold.
It comes as a separate online Connolly campaign rally – viewed at times by more than 700 participants – heard more than €28,500 has been donated for her election bid so far.
The rally heard praise for Ms Connolly from civil rights campaigner Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, who spoke of how she encouraged the Galway West TD to run, as well as supportive contributions from businessman Fintan Drury, and poet Sarah Clancy.
Candidates in the last two presidential campaigns spent hundreds of thousands of Euro in their bids for Áras an Uachtaráin.
The rally was told by one of Ms Connolly’s team, Béibhinn O’Connor, that more than €26,000 has been raised for the campaign so far with donations averaging at €30.
She said: “This campaign is powered by ordinary people not by wealthy donors or corporate cheque books.”
She said: “At the same time we do need to be honest. We need to raise much more money if we’re going to build something strong and lasting.”
A further sum of about €2,500 was raised during the rally.
When she spoke Ms Connolly pledged to dedicate herself to the “welfare of the people” should she be successful.
“I promise and I assure you, that notwithstanding the restrictions of the Constitution and the law that governs the role of the president, which I’m very conscious of, I will use my voice as best I can, if I’m elected with your help,” she said.
Ms Connolly said her presidential campaign is part of a movement that is “looking for something different in our country”.
“It is a movement that says we cannot stand idly by and tolerate genocide as we look on in Gaza, or look at the normalisation of war, the normalisation of homelessness,” she said: “None of this is normal.”
“I have no doubt, with your help, that we will be celebrating in the Áras in November.”