{"id":16470,"date":"2025-09-12T11:10:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T11:10:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/16470\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T11:10:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T11:10:06","slug":"toibin-calls-on-ind-ireland-to-get-behind-aras-candidate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/16470\/","title":{"rendered":"T\u00f3ib\u00edn calls on Ind Ireland to get behind \u00c1ras candidate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aont\u00fa leader Peadar T\u00f3ib\u00edn has called on Independent Ireland to get involved with his party in the Presidential Election nomination process, in order to get another candidate into the race for the \u00c1ras.<\/p>\n

It comes after a party hustings was organised by Aont\u00fa in Leinster House yesterday which saw ten votes committed to nominating Maria Steen for the Presidential race.<\/p>\n

Ms Steen, a barrister and conservative campaigner, requires ten more votes, or alternatively, nominations from four county councils.<\/p>\n

Speaking to RT\u00c9’s Morning Ireland, Deputy T\u00f3ib\u00edn said: “This has been a really good initiative. I don\u2019t think it has ever happened in Leinster House before where we have managed to get disparate politicians, bring them together and achieve a nomination process.”<\/p>\n

Mr T\u00f3ib\u00edn said it is worth trying, adding that a lot of politicians in Ireland sit on the sideline because they “do not think anything is going to happen”.<\/p>\n

“The difference between us is that we will bloody try. We will make a damnable effort to see if we can pull every lever that is there to make something happen,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I respect Independent Ireland and they have their own process but I would encourage them to get involved, to pull those levers, to see can we get another person in that race.”<\/p>\n

He described the presidential race as “one-dimensional” at the moment, saying that there are two government candidates “who are very similar” and Catherine Connolly.<\/p>\n

We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences<\/a><\/p>\n

“It will be a debate with a lot of people in Ireland whose voices won\u2019t be included in that debate,” Mr T\u00f3ib\u00edn said.<\/p>\n

The Meath-West TD stressed that “as a democrat we should be able to select people we don\u2019t necessarily agree with”.<\/p>\n

Read more: SF leader McDonald rules herself out of Presidential Election race<\/a><\/p>\n

“The Presidential Election is the competition of ideas, it is where this country nearly decides on its values at a given time and the president should embody those values coming into the next seven years,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr T\u00f3ib\u00edn said there is a big chunk of people who voted against the family and carers referendum last year who agree with Ms Steen on “a lot of things”.<\/p>\n

“I think she is a very articulate, intelligent candidate and would make a great impact on that election,” he added.<\/p>\n

On two anonymous votes of support for Ms Steen within Aont\u00fa\u2019s hustings, Mr T\u00f3ib\u00edn said they participated, gave a commitment to support Ms Steen\u2019s nomination but “have to go back to their team”.<\/p>\n

He added that he hoped they would be making their support for Ms Steen\u2019s nomination public “soon”.<\/p>\n

When asked if Ms Steen can get the ten more votes required, Deputy T\u00f3ib\u00edn said there are ten people within the Oireachtas who would have similar platforms to Ms Steen or have previously stood up to be democrats to select individuals “even when they don\u2019t agree with them”.<\/p>\n

“I am asking anybody who hasn\u2019t nominated anybody at this stage to use their vote\u2026 this is a constitutional power that TDs have,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It is a really important one and they should exercise it. They shouldn\u2019t squander it at this moment in time.”
On why he did not run himself, Mr T\u00f3ib\u00edn said it was because his party is doing “very well”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aont\u00fa leader Peadar T\u00f3ib\u00edn has called on Independent Ireland to get involved with his party in the Presidential…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-16470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16470","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=16470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}