Fergus Finlay
FORMER GOVERNMENT spin doctor Fergus Finlay made a right Horlicks of explaining away his latest, mortifying effort to win the Labour Party’s nomination for the presidential election. Fungus has spent nearly 30 years trying to prevent, supplant or succeed Michael D Higgins as president, with his latest effort being the fifth such one in the presidential stakes.
In 1997 Finlay used his influence as Dick Spring’s handler to prevent Michael D taking the Labour nomination and instead install Adi Roche, who went on to bomb in a fiasco that finished Tricky Dicky’s party leadership.
In 2004 Fungus helped to persuade Labour’s leadership, then headed by Pat Rabbitte, that a Higgins nomination would upset Fine Gael, which was not running a candidate but was about to coalesce with Labour in government.
In 2011 Finlay took the gloves off in yet another campaign to block Higgins, arguing that Michael D was too old, too left wing and a political relic in such modernist times. A better candidate, argued Finlay and fans, was, well, Fergus (I coulda been somebody). Higgins won the presidency that year.
In 2018, with President Higgins poised for a second term, the ever-so-subtle Fungus claimed he would run a different “sleeves-rolled-up, community-based presidency” at the “coal face” of communities. This energetic, physically demanding presidency would, of course, be different to that which a then 77-year-old Higgins would be capable of. Michael D ran again and walked back into the Áras unopposed.
This time, in his attack on Labour presidential candidate Catherine Connolly, Finlay has been widely quoted as saying he had offered himself to Ivana Bacik as a presidential candidate for Labour. This generous offer was referred to in the Sunday Independent and the Irish Times, with the latter quoting his remarks in an RTÉ Behind the Story podcast. An RTÉ news bulletin also reported that he had “asked Ivana Bacik if he could run for president for the party” and that he had indicated “he was open to running for the presidency”.
Michael D Higgins
The podcast also contained Finlay’s statement that “I wanted to be considered as a candidate” and that he “felt no entitlement to anything”.
Interviewed three days later about the presidency by Newstalk’s Pat Kenny, the interviewer put it to Fungus that he had said to Bacik, “I wouldn’t mind if you’re thinking of putting…”, at which point Finlay quickly interrupted to say: “No, no, to be fair, to be fair, I didn’t say that. I said I’d love to meet her to talk about the presidency. That’s all I said. I think the message was reasonably clear but I didn’t say I want to run; it must be me… I’ve never assumed any sense of entitlement.” How confusing.
Had he won a nomination any time recently, Fungus would certainly have needed a ‘sleeves-rolled-up’ campaign given his role as chair of the Stop Out of Control Drinking campaign, funded by drinks giant Diageo – an initiative that was slammed by health professionals. He would also have had a little difficulty fending off criticism of his role at Wilson Hartnell PR, where he was in charge of the account for the Irish Tobacco Manufacturers’ Advisory Committee.
