Fine Gael’s presidential nominee may be in for a rude awakening from the Irish public, according to Independent TD Mattie McGrath.
The Tipperary TD said Fine Gael’s likely presidential nominee Heather Humphreys may be in for a “rude awakening from the Irish public given her disastrous role as Director of Elections for the 2024 referendums on family and care.”
Fine Gael Deputy Leader Helen McEntee announced her support for former minister Heather Humphreys in her bid to be the party’s nomination to contest the Presidential Election. Ms Humphreys, along with MEP Seán Kelly have both confirmed they will seek the nomination, though Ms Humphreys appears to have gained an unassailable lead and is the almost certain nominee after a tsunami of public support from colleagues this week.
Minister for Education and former Minister for Justice Helen McEntee said on Wednesday: “I’ve worked with her for many, many years and I believe she would make an excellent president representing people right across this country.”
However, in a statement on Thursday, Deputy McGrath went on to claim that “as Director of Elections, Ms Humphreys oversaw a Fine Gael campaign that ended in an utter and well-deserved humiliation for that party by a public that immediately diagnosed it as an attempt to vandalise the constitution by a phalanx of out-of-touch government funded NGO’s.”
“It is now very clear that Ms Humphreys is going to be the Fine Gael nominee and as such her record on protecting the integrity of the constitution is now open to public and political debate.
“My own sense is that both Heather and Fine Gael have still failed to grasp just how angry the Irish public remains about the Government party’s attempts to erase the word mother from the constitution and insert a provision on care that was roundly rejected by a vast majority of those who voted.”
“When she accepted the role as Director of Elections, she began by repeating what were ultimately and correctly judged to be total distortions, specifically around the role of women in the home.
“How then can we trust a presidential candidate to faithfully defend the integrity of the constitution and our laws when the same candidate has already clearly demonstrated an utter inability to properly understand what the constitution actually says, and to merely parrot speaking points that are nothing more that the manipulations of NGO’s.”
“I think this presidential campaign will be another opportunity for the public to give the Government a taste of the contempt that has been directed toward it for the last decade and more. We need a truly independent candidate that will adhere to the formality and dignity of the role without hijacking it smothering it in party political and NGO nonsense,” concluded Deputy McGrath.