The Labour Party leader, Mr Dick Spring, has suggested Prof Mary McAleese is "greatly mistaken" if she thinks she is the natural successor to Mary Robinson. Speaking on RTE yesterday, Mr Spring said the public "should know what they're actually getting" with Prof McAleese and claimed her record was in stark contrast to Mrs Robinson's.
"If Mary McAleese, on the basis of her past record, thinks that she can walk in those footsteps then I think she's greatly mistaken, because there are many, many areas of social policy and other policies where Mary McAleese was totally, totally on the opposite side to what Mary Robinson was fighting for in her 19 years in the Senate."
When it was put to him that Prof McAleese's opinions could have evolved since statements she made in the past, Mr Spring said: "Well, we'd need a very critical examination to see where the evolution has taken place, because there were very, very large differences."
He cited the example of the New Ireland Forum, "where you couldn't have had two people who were more opposed to each other" on the relationship of church and State.
"Likewise at the time of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, for example, Mary McAleese is on record at that time saying that her admiration was for Charles Haughey, a man that the British feared, who probably would have got a better deal . . . That was the conclusion she was arriving at."
He accepted that she herself had not stated explicitly that she wanted to be the new Mrs Robinson, but he said that was how the press was interpreting her message: "I think that the people should know what they're actually getting and I think it's quite disingenuous of Mary McAleese to be making those statements on the basis that she wants to follow Mary Robinson's footsteps."
In her address in Cork on Thursday, Prof McAleese gave details of some of the things she would like to do if elected president. She noted that, like Mrs Robinson, she came from a legal background, while stressing that legal qualifications were not a prerequisite for the Presidency.
Although Fianna Fail sources pointed out that Prof McAleese did not specifically stake a claim to Mrs Robinson's legacy, she nonetheless spoke of the need for an open and inclusive presidency and of her desire to represent "the forgotton Irish", those of Irish stock living abroad, what Mrs Robinson called the diaspora.
Mr Spring was joined last night by the Democratic Left leader, Mr Proinsias De Rossa, who is also supporting Ms Adi Roche's bid for the Presidency and who referred to desperate attempts at reinvention by other candidates.
"The main feature of the campaign so far has been the desperate attempts of some of the other candidates to reinvent themselves," he said. "Thus we have had the spectacle of Dana trying to assure us she is not really rightwing, despite her totally conservative views on virtually every contemporary social issue.
"Even more extraordinary is the apparent attempt by Mary McAleese to stake a claim to be the natural successor of Mary Robinson. . .
"Mary Robinson was always a champion of a liberal and tolerant society. Mary McAleese has supported narrow, conservative positions. Mary Robinson was a champion of pluralist values and an opponent of undue interference by the church in affairs of State.
"Mary McAleese has actually been a spokesperson for the Catholic Church. Mary Robinson fought for a fair and balanced accommodation between the conflicting national allegiances in Northern Ireland. Mary McAleese's position seems to be at the outer limits of constitutional nationalism."
Mr De Rossa said Prof McAleese had a right to hold and express any of the opinions she espoused over the years. "But I do question whether or not the Mary McAleese we are being presented with during this campaign is the real Mary McAleese."
