He has been written off not once, but twice, already in this presidential election, but Independent candidate David Norris is in the race until the bitter end.
Despite controversy and rumour, the senator only seems to grow more enthusiastic and more energetic as he travels the country in search of votes. The reception he received in Kilkenny last week was wholly positive.
His high-profile career, his colourful – at times, eccentric – mannerisms, and his distinctive voice make him one of the most instantly recognisable figures in Irish politics. Even the most politically apathetic schoolboy he met that day knew who David Norris was.
“Did you think it was a good reaction?” he asks.
“It’s the same everywhere – every town and city.”
A warm reception indeed. Since then, however, the colourful senator has only gone backwards in the polls. His performance on the Vincent Browne-hosted debate – deemed disastrous by pundits – preceded an immediate fall-off in expressed support.
Having been the favourite for the election before he was even a confirmed candidate – and then falling into second place in the polls behind Michael D Higgins – Senator Norris is now in fourth place, according to the latest Red C Poll.
It’s not something that fazes the 67-year old Independent candidate.
“The polls change,” he says.
“I had six or seven good polls in a row when I was top. When politicians get a bad poll, they say it’s only a snapshot. But I always said they were only snapshots, when they were good or bad.”
I met Senator Norris earlier in the summer, before the wheels came off his original quest for nomination. He was in Kilkenny to address the council, but he also took some time to visit St Canice’s Cathedral, where he was on the hunt not for votes – but for some tokens of his own heritage.
The 13th century cathedral, which houses the marble tombs of Kilkenny’s famous Butler family, was his first port of call. It seems that the senator has, like everyone else, strong links to Kilkenny.
“There’s a legend in our family that an ancestor of mine, Finian MacGilla-Patrick Rowe, assassinated one of the Butlers in the Cathedral,” he explains.
“They were our traditional family rivals. And of course, they won out in the end – they drove us out to the margins of the Slieve Bloom Mountains.
“We still managed to hold on to a fair amount of land until my aunt sold the last 100 acres in 1957. I was very sad; I was only 13 years old at the time.”
Senator Norris is half-English originally. His father John died when he was very young, with the young child Norris having only met him three times. His affinity for Ireland, and indeed, Kilkenny, has remained very much intact over the years.
“The Irish blood is there, and this feeling for the land, and the want not to break the connection,” he says.
“And I haven’t broken it. I come down here quite often, and I actually have cousins in Kilkenny.”
‘It would be inappropriate to take the salary, people are going through a lot of pain’
It’s no surprise, given Ireland’s economic situation, that much of the discourse surrounding the presidential race has had a consistent financial tinge to it.
The issue of the presidential salary – an impressive €250,000 – has given rise to many a lofty philanthropic boast, with the various candidates all clamouring to demonstrate their disinterest in the princely sum.
Asked what his own ambitions might be for the salary on the Late Late Show debate, Senator Norris spoke of an ‘independent fund’ that could be used to honour every county.
“It’s two separate ideas, but they could be linked,” he says.
“My idea is that since I’m single – I don’t have dependants, and I will have a pension from the senate and some of my needs will be catered for – I don’t believe I will need [the salary].
“I think it would be inappropriate to take it, because people are going through a lot of pain,” says the senator.
The senator refuses to be drawn into a game of one-upmanship on the issue, however.
“I think it’s a rather an unsophisticated approach if I may say so, without being uncharitable to the other candidates, to engage in a Dutch auction, and saying ‘I’ll give up half of it, I’ll give up two thirds of it, I’ll do it for nothing, I’ll take the average industrial wage’ when everyone knows that they’re supported by parties.”
Instead, Senator Norris says he would put aside a ‘considerable proportion, a majority’ of the money aside.
“The purpose of it would be to make the presidency more accessible. To allow more people in, to entertain more, to travel more.
“For example, a very simple thing – and I know there’s a Gaisce Award – but I would like to create something like a President’s Medal. And it needn’t be precious metal or anything like that,” says Senator Norris.
“I have three medals, because I completed the marathon three times. Now I didn’t do very good times, but I competed. And the reason was that I wanted that medal.”
The proposed President’s Medal, he suggests, could be given to people to recognise their work.
“I’ve seen people working in difficult conditions, particularly where they look after people who are intellectually disadvantaged, or have various mobility problems,” he says.
“Some of these people are exhausted. And because of the bar on recruitment, if somebody retires or dies, they’re not replaced. So those already exhausted people, who are full of care for their patients, have an extra burden.
“And [recognising their work] – that’s what I’d like to do. That’s one of the things the President could do.”
‘Some very harsh things have been said in the media’
Some of it has been positive, and some of it negative, but certainly few of the other presidential candidates have garnered anything like the sort of media coverage that Senator Norris has.
For the public and the media alike, it seems he can be a divisive figure. The senator stresses that both the press and public are entitled to their criticisms.
“I haven’t attacked anybody in the press,” he says.
“But some very harsh things have been said – some things that were less than charitable were said, and less than charitable constructions put on every action.”
Nonetheless, the issue of that original letter, and now, the unpublished letters, has refused to go away.
“It’s not going away in the media,” says Senator Norris, drawing a distinction.
“On the street – did any one person ask me about them? Did anybody ask?”
Has the public moved on? It’s certainly true that no one encountered on the campaign trail in Kilkenny brought up the topic.
And the idea that Norris was in some way attempting to avoid the media and public, as suggested in some quarters on the day of his Kilkenny visit, was difficult to reconcile with the image of the senator parading up High Street, greeting all-comers, with journalists and photographers from both national and regional media in tow.
“People come up and shake my hand, they tell me they’re voting for me,” he says.
“I’m sure some people will be discussing it, and I’m not accusing the media of anything. All I’m saying is I’ve invited RTE and TV3 to follow me, and they’ve seen it: Nothing.”
On the day of the Independent candidate’s Kilkenny visit, yet another ‘scandal’ story broke – this time over residency rights for former lover Tevfik Akin. The allegations later proved to be incorrect, but it is not difficult to see why the 65-year-old campaigner might be feeling a little hard done by. Rumours of sabotage have been given short shrift, but I put the question to him anyway.
Is there someone out to get him?
“I’ll leave that for you to judge,” he replies.
“But they’re all similar areas. We haven’t got over, quite, all this kind of stuff.
“Why didn’t [the media] take up some of the other asylum seekers I got in? Why didn’t they take up my contributions on the Immigration Bill?
“I’ve done hundreds and hundreds of these. And I’ll tell you this – I’m very proud of those that got in. This is a multi-cultural country now, and I stand for diversity.”
With just two weeks to go, the senator and his team are solidly focusing on their own campaign. Senator Norris refuses to speculate or comment on his opponents’ campaigns, or the implications of their potentially taking office.
“I think the Irish people are entitled to their choice. And I can tell you one thing, you will not find me making a pejorative comment upon any one of the other candidates. I said, right at the beginning, on the fourteenth of March this year, that I will campaign on my strengths,” he says.
“I will not be referring to, or attempting to highlight, any flaws, failings or weaknesses of the other candidates, because I credit the Irish people with enough sense. They can see for themselves.”
