Independent senator Frances Black has said she is “open to the conversation” about becoming a candidate in this year’s presidential election.
The 64-year-old singer said while she was not “actively seeking this”, some Opposition parties have approached her and asked was she “up for the conversation”.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Late Late Show on Friday, Ms Black said: “There’s been no decisions made. Just people have come to me and said ‘are you open to the conversation’, and I said ‘I am open to the conversation’.
“But there probably will be other people [who] will be actively seeking this as well. I’m not actively seeking it but I am open to the conversation. Of course, I’m open to all conversations but no, I haven’t made any decisions whatsoever and that is the truth.”
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Ms Black was joined on the show alongside her daughter Aoife Scott, who said she would make “an unbelievable president”.
“She is the most caring, most loving, most Irish person that you could possibly be,” Ms Scott said. “She just cares about Ireland so much and I think that would be unbelievable.”
Separately, Ms Black said she is due to meet with the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Harris next week to discuss the Occupied Territories Bill.
She said she would be asking him not to water down the bill, that it was “too important” and should be passed before this side of the summer.
Ms Black, who became a senator in 2016, said she visited Palestine in 2018 and what she saw was “heartbreaking”.
“I got into Gaza and I saw the deprivation, I saw how people lived. I saw there was no electricity, their water was polluted ... I remember a young mother saying to me ‘why have the international community abandoned us’ and that really broke my heart,” she said.
Ms Black added that she also visited the West Bank and witnessed the apartheid regime.
“This Bill is important to the Palestinian people, it’s a tiny little step for the Israeli Government to have consequences to what they’re doing.”
