Fact File
Who he is: Derek Nally Occupation: security consultant and honorary president of the Irish Association for Victim Support, which he founded; former general secretary of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors. Why he is in the news: he's trying to follow Dana's lead by securing the backing of four county councils for his presidential bid.
Derek Nally has his work cut out for him this weekend as he and his supporters try to persuade county councillors from Cork to Louth to back his bid for a presidential nomination on Monday.
His emergence in the race weeks after the starting whistle blew and in the face of the high hurdles of party whips has given the 61-year-old former garda an unenviable handicap.
However, the workaholic founder of Victim Support has never been known to shy away from a challenge. Not for the first time in his life he is pushing the system as hard as he can.
It was as general secretary of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, a trade union-like body representing the interests of middle and supervisory ranks, that the straight-talking garda's son from Tipperary first displayed his steel. A former colleague describes him as simply "the most effective general secretary that AGSI ever had".
During his tenure from 1975 to 1983, Mr Nally raised the profile, activities and influence of AGSI considerably until it "virtually drove the whole criminal justice agenda in the early 1980s", according to one commentator.
He was instrumental in securing significant gains in pay and working conditions for the association's members and his influence as a progressive thinker, well-versed in policing methods and issues around the world, forced many middlerank gardai to broaden their outlook on crime.
He also courted journalists assiduously and was an accomplished television performer. Unlike many gardai of his generation, he did not display any paranoia about the liberal media's intentions.
"He was very thoughtful about crime. He wasn't just for `lock 'em up and throw away the key'," said one journalist.
"He was very strange in that you never quite saw him as a guard. He had a slight distaste for the crude image of the Garda and was not happy with the macho element in it. He had the feeling the Garda needed to go into the next generation."
Mr Nally's most memorable step in dragging AGSI into the next generation and upping its ante came at its 1982 conference. The AGSI passed a motion supporting ways to facilitate the extradition to Northern Ireland or Britain of suspected terrorists. Mr Nally went a step further when he said consideration should be given to allowing RUC officers to question terrorist suspects in Garda custody. Extradition was highly contentious in Anglo-Irish relations at that time. Officials in the Republic were concerned that suspects would not receive fair trials in the North or Britain, while unionists and British politicians were claiming that the State was a safe haven for terrorists.
The violence in the North had already claimed the lives of several gardai and there was a general mood among officers of all ranks that if the RUC wanted a suspect extradited, it should be helped.
"I think he was making a valid point that was felt by all members and, if they didn't feel it before he made it, they certainly supported him after he made it," said one colleague.
Mr Nally received a dressing-down from his superiors for the motion which the then Taoiseach, Mr Charles Haughey, is believed to have perceived as political interference in an extremely sensitive matter, but he had already widened the ASGI's parameters and opened a debate which had until then been conducted outside the glare of the media.
"There were many times during his career in the force when the things he did would have been frowned upon 10 years earlier. He was always chipping away at the block," said another colleague.
Mr Nally's friends describe him as a charming and charismatic figure with a good sense of humour. "He's got a very strong personality. He's a very determined chap, he's his own man. He certainly has an idea about where he's going and where he wants to go," said one.
He was born in Thurles, Co Tipperary, in December 1936, the second-eldest of four children. His older brother, Mr Harry Nally, is a former civil servant with the Department of Finance who now runs a security management consultancy. One of his sisters works for social services in Dublin and the other is a housewife in Caherciveen.
Mr Nally attended Thurles Christian Brothers School before joining the Garda in 1957 at a stable law-abiding time when the force's regime was strict and authoritarian. He was made a sergeant in 1964 and was transferred from Wexford to the Garda press office in Dublin in 1971.
He resigned from AGSI in 1983, the same year he founded the Irish Association for Victim Support of which he is still honorary president. He is also the chairman of Tourist Victim Support.
He retired from the Garda in 1987 and was named Person of the Year in 1995 for his "outstanding contribution to society in Ireland" through his work with victim support.
Mr Nally is a security consultant and managing director of a group of private investigation companies with offices in Dublin, Bunclody and Northern Ireland, which mainly carry out investigations for insurance companies.
He is vice-president of the council of International Investigators and will be its president in two years. He has been named investigator of the year by both the British Association of Investigators and the Council of International Investigators.
Keenly interested in youth work, he was chairman of the National Federation of Youth Clubs from 1973 to 1975. He also served as vice-chairman of the National Youth Council and is a founding member of the Irish Youth Foundation.
He is married with two adult daughters. Louise is a chef with Ryanair and Laurena is a childminder in New York. His wife, Joan, runs a company called Nally Associates, which serves documents and does traces for outside companies. They live in a bungalow outside Bunclody. Mr Nally had a heart by-pass operation in 1988 and says he feels healthy at the moment. In what spare time he has he enjoys horse racing and fishing.
After he resigned from the force, his public profile dipped considerably. "He went from being one of the most influential figures in public life to disappearing out of the race," says one colleague.
Some former colleagues are puzzled that Mr Nally never chose a career in politics or tried to rise within the ranks of the Garda. They also wonder why, when his influence in public life is in decline, he should try to run for the Presidency now.
"If you asked me a month ago I wouldn't have dreamed that he would run for the office," said one. "Of course, I wouldn't have thought that Dana would run either. In an Irish context, the president of Victim Support would probably make as big an impact as the head of the Chernobyl Children's Project."