Search

04 Dec 2025

'It's a lesson that shouldn't have had to be learned' Leitrim councillor speaks on failed presidential bid review

Cllr Paddy O'Rourke said that he would have welcomed the situation being put to bed ahead of the end of the year.

Presidential candidate Jim Gavin canvasses in Kilkenny

Jim Gavin

The report was due to be ready on 12 November, but was delayed, much to the anger of many politicians in the party. 

The review is being overviewed by legal teams and then there will be a special parliamentary party meeting.

Cllr O'Rourke continued: "It is still overshadowing the important business the party should be getting on with rather than allowing this to dominate their discussions."

He said he did not believe the review would put Taoiseach Micheál Martin's position in jeopardy. ""I genuinely don't think it will have any impact on the his leadership; those who are charged with undertaking the review, will do that to the best of their ability but it's only as good as the evidence provided by a number of people that have been called to give evidence. It's my understanding that Jim Gavin refused to be interviewed yet he seems to want to have his legal team to run over the report as it stands. It's not all his fault either." 

He concluded: "It's a lesson that shouldn't have had to be learned because I know that other parties tried to tweak their presidential candidate selection - Fine Gael comes to mind back in the day and Gay Mitchel ended up getting just 6% per cent of the popular vote."

 

To continue reading this article,
please subscribe and support local journalism!


Subscribing will allow you access to all of our premium content and archived articles.

Subscribe

To continue reading this article for FREE,
please kindly register and/or log in.


Registration is absolutely 100% FREE and will help us personalise your experience on our sites. You can also sign up to our carefully curated newsletter(s) to keep up to date with your latest local news!

Register / Login

Buy the e-paper of the Donegal Democrat, Donegal People's Press, Donegal Post and Inish Times here for instant access to Donegal's premier news titles.

Keep up with the latest news from Donegal with our daily newsletter featuring the most important stories of the day delivered to your inbox every evening at 5pm.