Heather Humphreys: ‘I really feel that the job of the President can be a very unifying force within this country’

The Irish presidential election campaign has been a vicious battle on the two most recent occasions but there was no fear of that type of hostility in Portlaoise on Thursday morning as Fine Gael candidate Heather Humphreys came to town.

The town’s library on Main Street was the location for her canvass.

Apart from her campaign team, council officials, library staff, reporters and the usual gathering of the local Fine Gael faithful, those available to meet her were young parents and their toddlers.

Laois Fine Gael TD Willie Aird, Cathaoirleach Barry Walsh and Fine Gael councillors Paddy Buggy and Vivienne Phelan were among the welcoming party as was Council CEO Michael Rainey.

Another warm welcoming face was Mary Sweeney, both a former councillor and a former librarian.

There is no denying Humphreys’ natural charisma. All politicians are well able to press the flesh but she’s in her element in the library, at ease sitting reading and playing with small children.

Three-year-old Jack O’Gorman and his younger brother Fionn, who’ll be one on Saturday, play a stormer in picking out books for Heather to read and they listen and engage attentively. Their mother is Rosemary Whelan, a long-time staff member with Charlie Flanagan who is now a part of Willie Aird’s team. She’s also a former Mountmellick Town Councillor.

Heather has grandchildren of a similar age but she reads, plays games and it’s not awkward or forced as can often be the case in these scenarios.

These Friday morning library children are all about her too. “A pity they can’t vote,” quips one smart alec.

An accidental presidential candidate of sorts, Humphreys stepped in to replace Mairead McGuinness, the party’s original choice, who had to pull out of the race on health grounds.

Just over a year ago she came out of the political scene herself when she didn’t contest the General Election. She’d been a TD since 2011 and a Government minister for 10 years. Prior to all of that she had been a county councillor in the Clones district of her native Monaghan since 2003.

It was on the back of canvassing during that Local Election campaign that she decided she didn’t have the energy any more for national politics.

In an interview earlier this year with Mary Kennedy and Mary McAleese on the Changing Times Podcast she spoke about how she wanted to spend more time with her family, more time in the garden.

But here she is now, travelling the length and breadth of the land in search of the votes that will send her to Áras an Uachtarán as the country’s 10th president.

“Well, I spoke to Mary McAleese and Mary Kennedy last January and I’d stepped down from national politics and at that stage I was looking forward to, you know, to doing other things and taking a break,” she says while doing a brief interview in the library.

“So I really did have a great long rest and this opportunity came in August and I decided that it couldn’t have come at a better time because I was in good shape, I felt good, and I decided I would go forward again and put myself forward for public service.”

What about the energy levels that she spoke about during last year’s Local Elections?

“Well, look, I’d spent 10 years as a government minister, I was 14 years in the Dáil, 10 years as a government minister and I really had given it everything.

“So I decided to step back and let new blood come in and let new ideas and new thinking … I was long enough being a minister and I made that decision.”

She adds that she’s “now much fitter than I was, much healthier lifestyle”.

“I really did get a good break and this just came, as I said, timing is everything. I’ve never been in better health … my health is excellent and my energy levels are back to where they were and I always have great energy.”

Her first foray into politics came in 2003 when the dual mandate was introduced. TDs could no longer be councillors which meant that long-serving Cavan-Monaghan Fine Gael TD Seymour Crawford needed a replacement on Monaghan County Council.

Heather’s brother, Bert Stuart, a prominent IFA man was also considered but it was Heather who went forward, was co-opted to the council in 2003, elected in her own right in 2004 and then to the Dáil in 2011.

She held two full ministries – Social Protection and Rural and Community Development – as well as holding the Justice portfolio when Helen McEntee was on maternity leave.

Indeed her time in the Rural and Community Development brief had her in Laois on a couple of occasions, including to both turn the sod and officially open the new library she’s back in now.

“I never thought then that I would be contesting a presidential election,” she laughs as she reflects briefly on her first local election success in 2004.

“But I’ve been very fortunate, every time I went for election I got elected. At the local authority and then in 2011 I got elected to the Dáil and again in 2016 and again then in 2020.

“So I have enjoyed my time, I enjoyed every minute of what I did when I was doing it in both local politics and then in national politics and of course in the middle of all that I was also running a Credit Union.

“I was the manager of a Credit Union right up until 2011 until I got elected to the Dáil, so I’ve always been part of community, I’ve always been working with people and I really do like meeting people, I enjoy chatting to them and I do enjoy solving, you know, dealing with the issues that they had as a TD and I think that was important.

“Of course the presidency is a completely different role and it’s above politics and if I get the opportunity and I humbly ask the people to vote for me, I will give that job absolutely everything and I know I will enjoy it.”

Does she think it will be challenge attracting a more urban vote given her rural background?

“When I was Minister for Rural and Community Development, I did a lot of work in urban areas as well, so particularly around the inner city, I was in a number of different clubs in Dublin and I supported them.

“I think to be fair when you look at my record as Minister for Social Protection, I rolled out the hot school meals to every primary school in the country, so that included both the urban and rural people and families and it did benefit families hugely, especially they knew that their children were getting a staple hot dinner in the middle of the day and I think that’s important.

“So I have been to many different areas, as I said, in towns and in cities right across the country and I look forward to getting out and about and meeting as many people as I can during the campaign.”

Fianna Fáil’s Jim Gavin and Independent Catherine Connolly are the only other runners meaning this election is the lowest number of candidates since 1990.when only Mary Robinson, Brian Lenihan and Austin Currie were on the ballot sheet.

The failure of the likes of Maria Steen and Gareth Sheridan to secure a nomination, plus the Fine Gael diktat to their councillors not to facilitate an independent has led to criticism.

Would she like to see the threshold for becoming a presidential candidate widen somewhat?

“Yeah, well look, that’s a matter that’s set down in the Constitution, it’s very clear that you need 20 Oireachtas members or four local authorities. If that were to change it would be a matter for the government to bring forward proposals to change it.

“The President wouldn’t have a role there and at the minute I’m on the ticket, I went through the process and my focus is going to be getting out and about and meeting people and telling them what I want to see and what I would do as a President of Ireland.”

“Well I want to be a voice for everybody,” she adds when asked if she thinks she can be a voice for the conservative voter that Maria Steen was seeking to represent.

“I really feel that the job of the President can be a very unifying force within this country, unifying in terms of divisions that we have right across our society and we see it in the world.

“We live in a very divisive world and I feel that the President can have a role in bringing people together, in creating a deeper understanding.

“I want to be a President that represents everybody, a President that can support communities, support the volunteers and recognise the huge work the volunteers are doing throughout this county here.

“Also I want to see people coming together and where there’s division I want to bring unity and that also applies on a cross-border basis as well and the third thing I want to do is regarding opportunity and I want young people to get involved.

“I want them to see this country as a country of opportunity where they can fulfill their full potential.”

And with that, the show moved on. Aoife Moore, library branch manager, showed her around various parts of the building and the entourage then took in a bit of Main Street.

Then it was on to Limerick. It’ll be more of the same every day between now and polling day.