Pat Cox outlined his credentials, 'warts and all', as his push for the Park gets under way, writes PAUL CULLEN
IT WAS a newly humble and confessional Pat Cox who yesterday sought the Fine Gael nomination for the presidency.
“I am who I am, warts and all, and I’m willing to serve if asked,” the former PD, Fianna Fáiler and Independent declared in a spirit of “deep humility” at his press conference in the Mansion House, Dublin.
Later in the day, talking to Seán O’Rourke on RTÉ’s News at One, he admitted that “humility is not a word associated with me” and insisted that, hitherto, he had been shy about talking about himself.
Not any more. Because of the “singular” nature of the contest, he said he intended to introduce himself in this election.
“My life is an open book,” he declared, before flicking through some of the early pages.
Some people think he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he said, but he was born in Rialto in Dublin and lived in Drimnagh until he was eight.
His father was a watchmaker who lost his job in an earlier recession in 1957.
Mr Cox remembered him “working every hour of the day” fixing watches and coming home disappointed as customers failed to pay up.
Finally, in 1958, his father got a job in Shannon and spent three years living in a chalet in the airport while saving for the deposit on a house.
“Today there are five- and six-year-olds whose fathers and mothers are experiencing this,” he said. “They have a right to know that their president can feel and understand those things and will carry a determination that is personal and not merely intellectual to deal with this.
The profile he released yesterday charts his various moves in work and politics – from an economics lecturer in Limerick to an unsuccessful outing for Fianna Fáil in the 1979 local elections; from journalism in RTÉ to the post of general secretary of the PDs, then three terms in the European Parliament, where he was elected president in 2002.
Then, suddenly, it all came to an end. In 2004, he retired from politics and found himself back in Ireland, as he said yesterday, “middle-aged, male and unemployed” and doing DIY and gardening.
He set up a consultancy firm, Capa Ltd, but insisted yesterday that “I’m certainly not the biggest lobbyist in the world”.
In 1974, Mr Cox married Cathy Tighe and they had seven children, one of whom died in car crash at the age of six.
Mr Cox also enumerated his various pensions and directorships; these include a pre- tax €50,000 a year from Dáil and European pensions, €30,000 annually as a director of Michelin, and €65,000 for an advisory role at Microsoft Europe.
Although he had “no sense of entitlement and no presumption of preferment”, he said he was determined to drive to victory in the race for the Park.