Simon Harris has told the Dáil that spoiling a vote in the presidential election was a democratic act, as he admitted that many found the field of candidates too narrow.
The comments come two months after Mr Harris’s party, Fine Gael, instructed its 246 councillors around the country to block the nomination of potential independent presidential candidates.
An order from party headquarters was sent to 31 Fine Gael council groups, with an instruction which said that: “As Fine Gael has a candidate in the Presidential Election, Fine Gael public representatives are only to nominate the Fine Gael candidate.
“Fine Gael public representatives cannot in any way facilitate the nomination of any candidate other than the ratified Fine Gael candidate.”
The diktat further said: “In the event of a vote at any local authority on the nomination of a person other than the ratified Fine Gael candidate, the Fine Gael local authority members are whipped to oppose that nomination.”
Tánaiste Simon Harris when asked today what the government had “learned” from the number of spoiled votes in last month’s election, Mr Harris said he rejected out of hand any idea that there was a diktat when it came to independents.
He was responding to a question from Aontú TD Paul Lawless, who said that the number of spoiled votes in the Presidential election represented the “biggest democratic deficit” in the history of the State.
“There has been a crisis of democracy – a huge deficit in relation to democracy – following this election. 317,000 people either spoiled their vote or voted for a withdrawn candidate,” Mr Lawless said during Thursday’s leaders questions.
“In some constituencies, the spoiled vote was North of 20% – and indeed, many boxes across the country showed that spoiled votes was actually higher than the number of votes received by the second candidate. This was not an accident, nor was it apathy. This was frustration,” Mr Lawless said.
In October, just ahead of polling day, an Aontú Bill called for the threshold on nominations to be lowered to ensure more candidates. The party also wants Irish citizens on both sides of the border to have the right to vote.
“These people went to the ballot paper to voice their frustration [at] this huge deficit in relation to the ballot paper. You yourself, Tánaiste, dictated to your councillors to prevent independent voices and members of smaller parties accessing that nomination paper,” the Mayo TD added.
The number of spoiled ballot papers in 2025 was almost as high as the combined votes of the Labour Party, the Social Democrats at the Labour Party, the Dáil heard.
“What has the Government learned from this?” Mr Lawless asked.
“I wish we had all these overall majorities that you think we have on local authorities. There’s six Fine Gael councillors on Kerry county councils, for example. Our councillors decided in our democratic structures how they wished to engage.
“You are, though, not wrong, in my view, on the issue of spoiled votes. I don’t ignore that, just to be clear. I do think people got in their car, got on their bike, they walked, they turned up at a polling station. They didn’t sit on the couch. And they took a decision to spoil their vote, which is a democratic act that they had every right to do.”
Mr Harris said he did not believe that thousands of people spoiled their votes for “one homogenous reason,” but said he did think that people “found the field [of candidates] more narrow than they expected it to be.”
“Quite frankly, it was more narrow than I expected it to be,” claimed Harris.
“We’re happy to reflect, we’re happy to engage,” Harris insisted, adding: “We won’t have a presidential election for another seven years.”
“I think if anything was to be done in this space it would require government and opposition support,” added Mr Harris.
“I think some of your suggestions are interesting,” Mr Harris said of an Aontú Bill calling for reform, adding that he was “happy to engage.”