Former government minister Mary Hanafin has ruled herself out of seeking the Fianna Fáil presidential nomination.

She had indicated in June that should would seek the party’s nomination.

However, she told RTÉ’s Brendan O’Connor show: “I’m going to stay on the bench on this one”.

Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin yesterday endorsed former Dublin GAA football manager Jim Gavin as the party’s candidate in the upcoming Presidential Election.

Mr Gavin wrote to the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party members confirming he would be seeking to be nominated to run in the election, which will take place in late October.

Ms Hanafin said she knew “at the outset” that she could not secure the party nomination “unless I had the backing of the leadership”.

She said that Mr Martin “didn’t discourage” her from running for Áras an Uachtaráin after she indicated interest in doing so previously, adding the conversation was “very positive”.


Jim Gavin is hoping to represent Fianna Fáil in the upcoming Presidential Election

“I said my type of campaign would be one which would be around the country going to different events, meeting people, doing the community kind of focus and that I would like to start immediately and he said ‘well go ahead and do that’, which I actually did,” she told the programme.

Ms Hanafin, who held several ministerial posts and elected a TD in 1997, said she was “treated with respect at the very beginning”.

However, she added a phone call “would have made a difference just to say ‘look, sorry Mary, we’re not running with you’ and I would have accepted that”.

“Unfortunately, in Fianna Fáil you tend to read an awful lot in the newspapers,” she said.

“So I could see that I wasn’t getting favourable comment in the newspaper, but I was on a flight back from my holidays last Monday morning and soon as I landed, I opened it up and I saw Jim Gavin. I said that’s it.”

Taoiseach backs Jim Gavin’s Fianna Fáil presidential candidate bid

The former minister described former taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s experience seeking the Fianna Fáil nomination as “worse” than her own.

Mr Ahern said on Friday that he was not ruling himself out of seeking a nomination for president, but expressed disappointment with the Fianna Fáil leadership for failing to support him.

Ms Hanafin said: “He’s a former taoiseach, he’s a former party leader, he should have been told ‘sorry, this is not a runner.”

She said she did not see a pathway for Mr Ahern to secure the nomination as “half of the parliamentary party has either been appointed ministers, junior ministers, committee chairs or has been appointed to the Senate, so there’s a huge sense of loyalty to the party leader there”.

In relation to Billy Kelleher’s aim to achieve the party nomination, she said: “Whether Billy can move beyond Cork, move beyond Munster would be a question.”

She added it is “very hard to win a battle in the parliamentary party if you do not have the backing of the party leader”.

When asked if the presidential nomination matter could leave scars within the party, she said: “It won’t leave a scar if we win.”

Meanwhile, Minister for Children Norma Foley has become the latest high-profile Fianna Fáil TD to row in behind Mr Gavin’s bid to become the party’s presidential candidate.

She told RTÉ’s This Week that she was “absolutely, 100% backing Jim Gavin”, describing him as a “man of tremendous ability”.

In relation to My Kelleher’s own campaign, she said she is “not about supporting one and denigrating another”.

Ms Foley said: “I know, Billy. I’ve known him for many, many years, he’s an excellent public representative.

“But I do think when you’re making a judgment call on the presidency, you need a president of the time and of the now.

“I think Jim Gavin, as I’ve already outlined, has many, many characteristics that make him an appropriate.”