Sir, – In the 2011 presidential campaign while involved in a debate with other candidates, Michael D Higgins stated that if elected, he would only serve for one term.
His election in 2011, like that of Mary Robinson in 1990, lifted the mood of those of us who wanted change in Irish society.
In spite of the fact that the president of Ireland has no executive powers, the mere presence of people with the radical track record of both Robinson and Higgins fulfilling the role of president was enough to energise left-thinking people in society.
Robinson’s tenure in office shook establishment bodies to the core and prompted them to act in a more egalitarian way. For example, her winning of the presidency in 1990 gave the public the confidence to vote yes for divorce in 1995, something voters failed to do 10 years earlier.
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Since 2022, the office of the presidency has become an overtly political one.
The first example of this was when a letter went to The Irish Times from Sabina Higgins proposing that Ireland could play a role as mediator between the Russians and the Ukrainians.
Earlier this year in an emotive speech, President Higgins himself described the housing crisis in the country as a disaster but without offering any details on how to solve it. Recently, he intervened politically again on the conflict between Israel and Hamas. On this occasion, he was broadly on the side of the Government.
My conclusion is that the President, while enjoying living a comfortable life in the Áras, misses the cut and thrust of political life, hence his occasional overtly political statements.
One wonders therefore why he didn’t retire from the presidency in December 2018 and go back into his much-loved Labour Party to contest a seat in Galway West 15 months later.
Had President Higgins taken that route, there would have been a positive response from the electorate.
Labour, instead of being a party on life support, would now be a significant force in Irish politics with Higgins as its leader, offering credible policies on a range of issues and presenting the public with a clear left alternative without the overbearing nationalist dimension being offered by Sinn Féin. – Yours, etc,
MICK MARTIN,
Drogheda,
Co Louth.