CANDIDATE'S REACTION:DEFEATED PRESIDENTIAL candidate Seán Gallagher said he was "uplifted" by his performance in the election campaign. His campaign had developed from a tiny handful of supporters to "more than 2,000" volunteers throughout the State.
Asked about his plans for the future, he said: “There is an end to one journey and perhaps it may be the beginning of another.”
“When I started this campaign five months ago, I didn’t have a political organisation, I didn’t have a team and I had the fewest resources of all the campaigns. And yet we built a tremendously powerful team and anything the team lacked in political experience we made up in commitment and passion.
“We built a team of volunteers – more than 2,000 – in every community, in every constituency and, you know, that’s inspiring and uplifting. We ran a great campaign, with no negative campaigning, with a great result, and I’m very proud of that.
“I’m proud of the team and, most importantly, proud of the volunteers from every single part of the country who believed in a message of positivity, of confidence in the future. For me, that augurs well for Ireland and so, today, I’m not disappointed, I’m uplifted, I’m here to celebrate with Michael D,” he said as the final results were about to be announced in Dublin Castle.
Asked if he would run again for the presidency, Mr Gallagher said: “I am not making any decisions about anything other than taking, perhaps, a few days off to rest, recuperate and see what happens.”
He thanked the reporters covering the election, “for all your courtesy throughout the campaign”.
A senior Labour Party source said the mood in the Higgins campaign was "very downbeat" last Sunday week, the day before Mr Gallagher's confrontation with Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness on RTÉ's Frontlineprogramme.
“We were 14 points down: it’s not something you can recover in the last week, so a lot of people were very upset,” the source said.
“It seemed that was coasting on a Bertie-style thing to a major victory,” the source said.
A senior Fine Gael source said Mr Gallagher’s initial success was due to adhering to a tightly controlled “non-political” message in the campaign, confining himself to issues such as job-creation, even though the presidency had no direct role in this regard.
