THE INCLUSION of Dana Rosemary Scallon on the ballot paper for the presidential election is assured following the decision by Offaly County Council to nominate her as a candidate.
Having failed to secure a nomination from the requisite 20 Oireachtas members, the former MEP and Eurovision Song Contest winner needed four county or city councils to agree to her candidacy in the October 27th election.
Carlow and Roscommon had already agreed to her nomination and Donegal approved her candidacy yesterday morning. In the early afternoon, the Offaly councillors voted 12 in favour and six against, with three members absent from the meeting.
The majority in favour consisted of eight Fianna Fáil and four Independent members, with five Fine Gael councillors and one Independent opposing the motion.
The special meeting was called at short notice for 2pm at the council building in Tullamore to discuss the motion which was proposed by Independent councillor Johnny Butterfield and seconded by Edenderry Independent John Foley.
Mr Butterfield said it was “right and proper” that the council exercise its right to nominate a candidate for “the highest office in the land”. Praising Ms Scallon’s anti-abortion stance, he said that “the killing of unborn children is one of the great crimes of our age”.
He said he wanted to “take issue with the national media, particularly RTÉ, for their bias in favour of David Norris”. He was confident that if Ms Scallon were elected, she would “give her all”.
Opposing the motion, Fine Gael councillor Thomas McKeigue said: “We weren’t contacted by Dana,” adding: “This thing has become a charade.” Councils had become “the last port of call” for candidates who had failed to secure an Oireachtas nomination.
He proposed a counter-motion supporting his party’s candidate Gay Mitchell MEP, which was seconded by Councillor Molly Buckley, but this was ruled out of order.
Fianna Fáil councillor Noel Bourke said he was backing the motion, but added: “In the actual election, the person I will be supporting will be Mary Davis.”
Cathaoirleach Danny Owens (FF), in favour of the motion, said: “Let the best horse jump the fence when this race gets going.”
Fianna Fáil councillor Eamon Dooley said afterwards that his party’s group on the council had originally decided to support Independent candidate Seán Gallagher but he had indicated he did not want any more than the four nominations he had already obtained.
The only difficulty Mr Dooley had was that, “Dana didn’t think it worth her while to come and visit us”, although this may have been due to the lateness of her entry into the race.
On Fianna Fáil’s decision not to field a candidate, he said: “Personally, I thought it was a huge mistake . . . I think time will tell that we should have.”
After news broke of the Offaly council’s decision, Ms Scallon, in Mullingar, Co Westmeath, said she was “absolutely delighted” to be nominated. “If I am honoured to be elected president, I would be a president for all the people,” she said. “I have represented Ireland now for 41 years on an international stage and I have also been honoured to represent my constituency in Europe.
“I believe they [the people] know they can trust me. They can rely on me to have their interests to the fore, to maintain the Constitution, which is what brought me into politics, and to serve them to the very best of my ability.”