{"id":100610,"date":"2025-10-24T03:11:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T03:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/100610\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T03:11:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T03:11:12","slug":"ireland-to-vote-for-10th-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/100610\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland to vote for 10th president"},"content":{"rendered":"

Irish voters will head to the polls from 7am this morning to decide who will be their president for the next seven years.<\/p>\n

The race has boiled down to a head-to-head between Catherine Connolly, an independent who has secured the backing of left-wing opposition parties, and Heather Humphreys, the candidate for Fine Gael who was a minister in the last coalition.<\/p>\n

They are vying to replace Michael D Higgins, who has served as President since 2011.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Ms Connolly, the clear favourite in a series of opinion polls conducted throughout the campaign, said she was the representative of a \u201cmovement\u201d and a \u201cvoice for peace\u201d and \u201cunity\u201d.<\/p>\n

The 68-year-old Galway mother of two had previous careers as a psychologist and barrister and has been backed by Sinn Fein, the Social Democrats, Labour and other left-leaning parties.<\/p>\n

The Irish speaker has been vocal on the issue of Palestine and protecting Ireland\u2019s military neutrality, and has criticised the US military\u2019s use of Shannon Airport.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Ms Humphreys pitched herself as a \u201ca centre-ground, pro-European, pro-business, common-sense\u201d candidate, adding that she would bring her experience in Government and as a Credit Union manager to the office.<\/p>\n

The 64-year-old, also the mother of two children, is a Presbyterian who was raised on a rural farm near the border of Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n

She said she has a unique understanding of different traditions on the island of Ireland.<\/p>\n

Beyond their visions for the presidency, coverage of the contest has centred on a series of controversies affecting the hopefuls.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Ms Connolly\u2019s judgment was called into question over hiring a woman to work in Leinster House, the seat of Ireland\u2019s parliament and its committees, who had previously been convicted of a firearm possession offence.<\/p>\n

The left-wing candidate said she believed in rehabilitation and the woman had been highly recommended, while her opponent said the security of the parliament had been put at risk.<\/p>\n

Lucia O\u2019Farrell, a constituent of Ms Humphreys, publicly criticised the former Cabinet minister for not supporting an inquiry into the death of her son, Shane, who died after being hit by a car driven by a man who should have been in jail.<\/p>\n

The candidate said she made representations to ministers on the matter and said she was \u201csorry that the O\u2019Farrell family feel it wasn\u2019t enough\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Ms Connolly was also asked several times about a 2018 visit to Syria, while she was a Galway TD, in which she encountered supporters of then-president Bashar Assad.<\/p>\n

Ms Connolly maintained the trip was a \u201cfact-finding mission\u201d where they visited a Palestinian refugee camp outside Damascus, and that she had no control over who was in her presence on such trips.<\/p>\n

Ms Humphreys was also questioned on her role in the appointment of a man to the board of a museum which was criticised as political, and claims by a former Cabinet colleague, ex-transport minister Shane Ross, that she had been opposed to stricter drink-driving rules.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

She said the appointment was a \u201cmistake\u201d made as a \u201cnew minister\u201d, and that she \u201cabsolutely supported\u201d the legislative reforms around drink-driving.<\/p>\n

The last large dispute of the campaign centred on Ms Connolly\u2019s work as a barrister.<\/p>\n

Ms Humphreys said she personally \u201cnever tried to capitalise on somebody\u2019s misfortune and to make money out of it\u201d, in reference to Ms Connolly\u2019s time working as a barrister during the economic crash.<\/p>\n

Ms Humphreys said Ms Connolly worked for \u201cUK banks\u201d before she went into politics, while she worked in a credit union, \u201cactually helping people to stay in their houses\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Ms Connolly accepted that she did work for financial institutions but worked for all types of clients.<\/p>\n

Other barristers defended the \u201ccab-rank rule\u201d and said it was not correct that criticism is directed at lawyers because of the clients they represent.<\/p>\n

More than 3.6 million people are eligible to vote, with polls open between 7am and 10pm.<\/p>\n

They will also see a third name on the ballot paper with Fianna Fail candidate Jim Gavin still technically eligible to win the election, despite declaring he was withdrawing from the contest weeks ago.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Mr Gavin dropped out of the race after it emerged he owed a former tenant thousands of euro, which he has since repaid.<\/p>\n

Excluding Mr Gavin, it is the first time since 1973 that the Irish public were left to decide between just two candidates.<\/p>\n

The counting of ballots will begin on Saturday morning with the winner expected to be announced at Dublin Castle later in the day.<\/p>\n

Ireland uses a system of transferable votes in elections but \u2013 with only three candidates on the ballot \u2013 there can only be a maximum of two counts.<\/p>\n

If the gap between Ms Humphreys and Ms Connolly cannot be bridged by Mr Gavin\u2019s votes, the 10th president will be declared after one count.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

The small field of candidates has drawn criticism of the nomination criteria for the post.<\/p>\n

To be eligible to run, a candidate must be over the age of 35 and have been nominated either by 20 members of the Oireachtas or four local authorities.<\/p>\n

No candidate was successful through the local authority route while an independent, Maria Steen, fell short of securing the necessary support from elected TDs (MPs) and senators.<\/p>\n

Dissatisfaction with the nomination process and the choice of official candidates has led to some activists launching a \u201c#SpoilTheVote\u201d campaign.<\/p>\n

The office of president is seen as a largely ceremonial role but the post also carries important responsibilities including consulting on the constitutionality of proposed legislation before signing it into law.<\/p>\n

A presidential term last seven years, with office holders only able to serve a maximum of two terms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irish voters will head to the polls from 7am this morning to decide who will be their president…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3656,13983,2044,61,60,62409,2043,977,43,18055],"class_list":["post-100610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-catherine-connolly","tag-election","tag-heather-humphreys","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-president","tag-jim-gavin","tag-michael-d-higgins","tag-news","tag-president-election"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}