FORMER MEP and minister of state Avril Doyle is due to announce at lunchtime today that she will be seeking the Fine Gael nomination in the forthcoming presidential election.
Sources close to Ms Doyle confirmed last night the former MEP had obtained sufficient support under party rules to go forward at the party’s convention in the Red Cow hotel and conference centre in Dublin on July 9th.
The announcement is likely to be made in a radio interview. A member of the Belton family which has deep roots in Fine Gael, Ms Doyle was first elected to the Dáil in 1982 for the Wexford constituency.
She served as a minister of state during the Fine Gael-Labour coalitions of 1982-87 and 1994-97. She was a member of the European Parliament for 10 years from 1999 to 2009.
Others seeking the Fine Gael nomination are former European Parliament president Pat Cox, Dublin MEP Gay Mitchell and Ireland East MEP Mairéad McGuinness.
Independent Irish-American hopeful Niall O’Dowd said yesterday the only practical method by which he could obtain a nomination was with the support of Oireachtas members.
The New York-based publisher said the demands of his business meant he had to persuade the requisite 20 TDs and/or Senators to sign his nomination papers rather than the alternative of getting nominated by four county councils.
With that in mind he met Fianna Fáil general secretary Seán Dorgan yesterday, and is scheduled to meet Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams and Mary Lou McDonald today.
“Obviously Fine Gael and Labour are tied up with their own candidates so the only options open to me are Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil and Independents.”
If he wins the presidency he intends to divest himself of his publishing business, he said.
“I’d be prepared to do that and move back to Ireland full time.”
A native of Thurles, Co Tipperary, who grew up in Drogheda, Co Louth, and emigrated to the US in his 20s, Mr O’Dowd has dual Irish and US citizenship and compares his situation to Éamon de Valera’s in that respect.
He rejected the idea “that I am somehow not Irish”, pointing out that he has been dealing with Ireland and Irish issues every day of the 32 years he has spent in the US.
“I consider myself as Irish as anyone else and would defy anyone to say otherwise; I don’t even think it’s an issue,” said Mr O’Dowd, whose older brother Fergus is a Fine Gael Minister of State.
Responding to suggestions that he is “too close” to Sinn Féin, he said: “If helping to bring peace to Ireland is being too close to Sinn Féin, I plead guilty.”
He rejected the claim that he would be a “proxy candidate” for Sinn Féin.
“What I’m trying to do is go the only route that is open to me, which is as an Independent with backing from Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin and Independents.”
Neither Fianna Fáil nor Sinn Féin have reached any decision as yet on their strategy for the presidential election, according to spokespeople for each of the parties.
In a statement yesterday, Sinn Féin said its councillors would be free to support the nomination of any presidential candidates “who give their backing to presidential voting rights for Irish citizens in the North”.
Monaghan councillor and party spokesman Matt Carthy said: “Under existing arrangements the current President herself would not be entitled to vote in the presidential election if she still lived in her native Belfast.”