Presidential procedure: Difficulties which arose over the procedure for conveying the news of his election, unopposed, as President of Ireland to Mr Justice Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, which have emerged in the State papers for 1974, foreshadowed the tensions between himself and the government two years later which led to the president's resignation.
Notification of the result of the election from the presidential returning officer was to be delivered by an Army officer to Mr Justice Ó Dálaigh at his home in Kilquade, Co Wicklow. However, there were problems as to whether the Army officer should deliver the message unopened or wait for Judge Ó Dálaigh to open the envelope and then read it out on his behalf.
In a report for the Secretary of the Department of the Taoiseach, the Government press secretary, Mr Muiris Mac Conghail, gives a detailed description of the ceremony, with accompanying diagram, which took place at 3.30 p.m. on December 3rd, 1974.
"The President-Elect was anxious to receive the notification outside his house and that this event should be covered by the Press," he writes. It was arranged for the press to be in attendance and the Army colonel and outriders were "held in waiting" until the appointed time.
Although the Army officer felt that his instructions simply required him to deliver the notification to the president-elect and inform him in Irish that he had been instructed to do so by the presidential returning officer, this was insufficient for Mr Ó Dálaigh.
"The President-Elect decided that the best way to deal with this matter would be for him to open the letter and ask the colonel to read the contents."
Although this was done, Mr Mac Conghail goes on to point out that a Government decision made the previous year, prior to the election of President Childers, specified that the Army officer who delivered the notification to the President-Elect and other senior dignitaries such as the taoiseach and the chief justice was "required to do no more... than deliver the message". This was in line with a previous government decision in September 1951, prior to the re-election without opposition of Seán T. O'Kelly.
Mr Mac Conghail goes on to suggest that the procedure chosen by the president-elect should be adopted on all such occasions in future.
An internal Department of the Taoiseach memo suggests that the Army officer was correct, that the Ó Dálaigh procedure was "rather contrived" and that the best method on such occasions in future would be for the Army officer to hand the letter to the president-elect while informing him at the same time of its contents, although this might require an amendment of the original government decision in the matter.
A further difficulty arose a few days later, as outlined in a memo to the secretary of the department on December 8th from one of his officials, informing him that the Grand Duke of Luxembourg was proposing to confer a decoration on the president-elect at a reception in Luxembourg the following day. Mr Ó Dálaigh was at the time a judge of the European Court and former attorney general and chief justice of Ireland.
Prior approval by the government was required before any decoration conferring a title could be accepted by an Irish citizen but the precise nature of the decoration was not as yet known.
"You may wish to advise the Taoiseach about this before the news breaks in the news media," the memo concludes.