We are now entering the business end of this presidential election.
With just over three weeks until election day, the diversity in the candidates running is striking: Three nominated by political parties. Four nominated independently.
One such independent seeing growing support is Cavan man Sean Gallagher. He is not a politician, but he must compete in a electoral competition against a number of political veterans who bring with them decades of experience in winning votes from the public.
He has never been elected, nor held public office, but he is no stranger to the public eye. His face is instantly recognisable to many people from his time spent on the panel of RTE’s Dragon’s Den.
“People know me as an entrepreneur on Dragon’s Den, but I’ve been travelling the country, and every single part of the country, in community groups, youth groups, disability groups, schools and colleges, and small businesses,” he says.
“In every part of the country, people know me as having a message of confidence and positivity, as well as working together.”
Mr Gallagher clearly feels his business background would help in trade missions abroad, particularly in terms of trying to attract the investment of foreign companies. He also suggests that he could help in giving certain industries a boost at home.
“It is about community and enterprise, because if you don’t have jobs in local areas, you won’t have local schools, you won’t have a local shop or local petrol stations,” he says.
“We need more small businesses to reduce unemployment. There are lots of people who won’t benefit from a lot of foreign direct investment in areas throughout the country, because factories won’t locate there. So we need small businesses to employ locally.”
Such ideals are well-intentioned, but can ‘enterprise’ fit into the limited role of the presidency?
In an interview published in last week’s Kilkenny Advertiser, Labour candidate Michael D Higgins expressed concern over some of the stated aspirations of other candidates. What does Mr Gallagher make of the limitations of the office?
“If you rewind 14 years ago, there’s nothing in the Constitution that says the role of the president is to promote peace in the island,” he says.
“But Mary McAleese did that over the last 14 years, focusing on the need for understanding and bridge building. She did that because of her own background, and her own empathy.
“The same can be true of job creation and enterprise. Of course it’s not the role of the president to create jobs – but you can bring the focus on what is working rather than what is not working.
“We’ve got to have that view – resilience and confidence; and that’s what’s missing in Ireland at the moment.”
The way in which the office of president has evolved over the last two terms is something upon which all candidates have been keeping a very close eye. Mr Gallagher sees the changing role of the president as a positive thing.
“Aras an Uachtarain has been opened up as a building – lots more people have come in, lots more meetings and groups,” he says.
“The president has got around to nearly every group in the country, and I think that’s huge, and it requires a lot of energy to do all the time.”
This particular characteristic of the modern presidency was emphasised very recently in Kilkenny. Earlier this month President McAleese visited Inistioge to open the new Cois Abhann sports and community centre, and to meet the assembled crowd.
But this idea goes beyond domestic issues, says Mr Gallagher.
“In recent months, with the visits of Barack Obama and Queen Elizabeth, [President McAleese] has represented Ireland with great dignity. In many ways, the President becomes the voice and the face of Ireland,” he says.
“At home you serve the people, but abroad you’re representing Ireland. I think people want the President for the next term to be of the time.
“Mary Robinson was of her time – when we were broadening out to be more inclusive. Mary McAleese came, and her theme of building bridges was crucial to the time of the peace process and building peace on the island, north and south.
“Now it’s about community, confidence. Yes, it’s continuing the work of inclusion, and building bridges, but it’s about using the organ of the state, the presidency and every other department to try and help create a better economy so we can have peace and prosperity.”
‘I was driven by the agenda to promote services, to improve things’
With Fianna Fail still politically toxic, and the internal turmoil that resulted in no candidate being put forward by the party, one big question still hanging over this election is where those Fianna Fail votes are going to go instead.
Fine Gael’s Gay Mitchell, for example, has been explicit in his attempts to woo the Fianna Fail voter. Meanwhile Deputy John McGuinness has heavily hinted that the party old heads may fall back on historic ideals and weigh in behind Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness.
It is worth noting that Mr Gallagher has a past strongly coloured by links to Fianna Fail, a fact that could realistically sway voters either way.
The Independent candidate has been a member of Fianna Fail three times in his life. It was in his late teens when he first became involved with Young Fianna Fail.
“I got involved because I was trying to promote the idea of a place that young people could meet,” he says.
“I was driven by the agenda to promote services, to improve things.”
Following a car accident in 1983 he began to get more involved in helping disadvantaged young people in his native Cavan, eventually becoming a youth worker.
“I wrote the Government’s national alcohol education programme – a programme to help young people avoid the dangers of alcohol and drug abuse.
“It was literally after two years of doing that, the then minister for health asked me to become a political secretary and look after his constituency. Again, it was about helping people locally, to address the issues that they had.”
Between 1993 and 2007 Mr Gallagher was not a member of any political party. He was fully occupied with setting out on the road to becoming an entrepreneur, and helping other aspiring entrepreneurs to do likewise.
But then, in the latter half of the last decade, he once again returned to his former party.
“In 2007, my local TD asked me as a personal favour to help him in his campaign, and I did,” says Mr Gallagher.
“At that time, the construction sector began to get into real difficulty. I began to understand there was a real problem there, and that thousands of jobs were going to be lost and hundreds of small businesses closed.”
In an attempt to set about changing the law and creating new legislation, he joined the ruling Fianna Fail party’s national executive in 2009.
Despite his past with the party, Mr Gallagher insists that his own personal links to the Fianna Fail party have no bearing on his campaign as an Independent candidate.
“Absolutely not, I’m an Independent,” he says. “I am no longer a member of Fianna Fail.”
‘I have a real sense that people want to see a candidate independent from political parties’
At this stage of the campaign, few candidates are willing to discuss in any detail their thoughts on their opposition. Mr Gallagher refuses to be drawn on the issue.
“I’m focused on my own campaign, there are lots of challenges as an Independent. There are obstacles and I’m focused on that, rather than on anyone else,” he says.
“But what I will say is that I have noticed, for the first time in Ireland, a real sense that people want to see a candidate independent from political parties, and that they do not want it to be simply a trophy for a political party, or a retirement home for politicians, no matter how good they are.”
With the final date for nominations having passed this week, Mr Gallagher’s opposition in the race for the Aras comprises six other candidates – a record for the Irish presidency.
“Every candidate would bring positive attributes,” says Mr Gallagher.
“But I think, potentially, my skill set is so diverse. That’s my USP.”
Certainly, the man’s CV shows an interesting range of pursuits. A former community worker, he began his career in agriculture and farming before becoming an entrepreneur.
“I’m as comfortable walking into a farm and talking about the price of milk, as at the same time being in an engineering or high-tech company. I’m as comfortable talking with youth groups in schools as I am in community organisations,” he says.
“I’m as happy in small businesses in Ireland as I am talking to the MD of a multinational.”
‘There are lots of heroes out there doing things for business, and community’
At the time of interview, Mr Gallagher was completing what he termed ‘the listening tour’ – a tour of the country to engage in discussions with various groups and communities in Ireland.
It is from the prospective public platform thus established he hopes to launch a successful bid for the Aras. The tour gave him the opportunity to meet a lot of people looking to be heard.
“There are lots of heroes out there doing things for business and community at the moment,” Mr Gallagher says.
“Lots of people are coming together into networks now, to support each other, it’s the same concept as community.
“I believe that now is the time for an independent, and for the president of our time to put the presidency to work at home and abroad, and to build on the good work done by Mary McAleese.”
