Green Party MEP Ms Patricia McKenna said yesterday that while she would like to run as a candidate in the next general election she had left it too late to find a "winnable" constituency in Dublin.
"I am keen on running but I left it a bit late," she said. Constituencies in Dublin where the party would have a good chance of returning a TD had already selected candidates.
Ms McKenna said she had no intention of being parachuted in as a candidate.
"There is no way I would push myself into a constituency where someone has been selected," she said.
However, it is believed Ms McKenna, who lives in the Taoiseach's constituency in Drumcondra, would welcome a nomination if a candidate chose to step aside in another Dublin constituency where the party would have a good chance of getting a candidate elected.
The MEP, who was first elected to the European Parliament in 1994, is the mother of a young child and is tiring of the travelling involved.
Asked who she would be backing in the Green Party leadership contest, Ms McKenna said she was not yet sure. At present the only candidate being proposed was Mr Trevor Sargent and she hoped there would be at least one other. Choice in such matters was healthier and there should be an election.
On whether the party needed a leader, she said: "Personally I don't think it will make a difference. It all depends on whether it is a figurehead. If it is that's fine, but I'm of two minds whether it will make a difference."