It is all the fault of Hugo Preuss. He and his Die Entwicklung des deutschen Stadtewesens. Were it not for him, his bloody book and his mentor, Otto Von Gierke, Dana could be singing all the way to the Aras.
Hugo and Otto had a hand in giving county councillors, TDs and senators a vice-grip on the Presidency of Ireland in a way that may frustrate the wishes of the Irish people. Hugo Preuss was the author of the constitution of the Weimar Republic. Influenced by Otto, he devised the role of President of the Weimar Republic on a model that was later copied by the framers of the Irish 1938 Constitution.
In his book on the Irish Constitution, the late John Kelly noted the many resemblances between the office and functions of the Irish President and those of the President of the Weimar Republic under the constitution of 1919. He says "a direct importation must be suspected".
When the present Constitution was being debated in draft form in the Dail in 1937, the office of the President was the issue of greatest controversy. The opposition feared that the Presidency might evolve into a dictatorship, although the precedence proposed (and enacted) to the President in the Constitution was (and is) merely a ceremonial one.
The cumbersome procedures for the nomination of a presidential candidate (20 members of the Oireachtas or four county or borough councils) were designed to corral the office from populism. And it was also to ensure that any nominated candidates would be from the political establishment and, therefore, unlikely to cause a constitutional crisis.
But our democracy is more robust now than it was believed to be in 1937 and the institutions of State are more firmly embedded. There is now no reason for the method of nomination of a presidential candidate to be so circumscribed.
The Constitution Review Group stated last year that the requirements for nominating a presidential candidate were "too restrictive". It recommended that either candidates are nominated by a given number of registered voters or by a reduced number of members of the Oireachtas.
It is now too late to enact a constitutional change on the nomination of presidential candidates for the forthcoming election. But the parties could reflect the recommendation of the Constitutional Review Group and the changed circumstances since 1937 by permitting the nomination of candidates from outside the political establishment. The most prominent of these being Dana.
DANA represents a constituency that feels excluded from the political process. This constituency consists of anti-abortion activists, activists who opposed the constitutional change on divorce and the other changes inspired by what they describe as "the liberal agenda". It is not clear what proportion of the electorate these comprise - clearly not all the 49 per cent of voters who opposed the constitutional change on divorce are excluded from the political process - but they certainly comprise a sizeable minority.
Was such a minority in Northern Ireland to be excluded from participating in an election similar to our presidential election, the majority in this State would strongly disapprove. Why should it be any different when the minority is within our own State?
There are very good reasons why an antiabortion proponent should not be elected to the Presidency - and I shall come to that below - but, ultimately, this should be for the people to decide, not the political establishment. The political establishment - Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour - should now enable the nomination of Dana and then should do their utmost to persuade the people not to vote for her. Otherwise, a significant minority will be excluded from what an important part of our democratic process.
The good reasons for voting against Dana start with her fundamentalism. Like other antiabortion activists, she believes that the State has no right to permit abortions under any circumstances - she would not and she believes she could not be part of any legal procedure which gave effect to such an enactment or which would facilitate such an enactment.
Such facilitation could be, for instance, the provision of information on abortion services available elsewhere. (Yes, this is already part of our law and, thus, would not be subject to any involvement by the new President, but if any change were to be made for whatever reason . . . )
The problem with this is that there is no scope in the functions and powers of the President for the exercise of any such independent discretion. And the further problem is that fundamentalists have a tendency to see fundamental values in more places than one.
Anti-abortion fundamentalists might find the restrictions on a President's freedom of speech particularly difficult to take - it would appear (from Article 13.7) that the President's right to free speech is more curtailed than that of any other citizen. How could Dana cope with that in the face, for instance, of what she might consider to be participation or collusion in the "genocide" of abortion?
The other good reason for voting against Dana is her opposition to the "liberal agenda". The point of the "liberal agenda" is to enable people to exercise discretion in the choice of their values, subject to others having the same rights. It was not, and is not, the imposition of liberal values on others. Liberalism in that sense is political, not metaphysical.
Those who oppose political liberalism (i.e. the liberal agenda) try to impose their values on those who do not share them. The modern pretext for this is the safeguarding of the "common good". The problem with the "common good" is that different people have different perspectives on what constitutes the common good and what it often amounts to is an attempt by some to impose their view of the common good on others.
This does not mean that the State can reflect no values - the State imposes a respect for the equal value of human life in criminalising murder. But values such as these are ones we all share and thus amount to no imposition.
Although it would be very unhealthy to have Dana as President, it would be very healthy to have Dana as a presidential candidate. The election campaign could be the vehicle for the discussion and elucidation of the values of political liberalism.
Such a campaign might also give rise to a debate on political funding again. It is likely that a presidential campaign by Dana would be supported by hefty financial contributions from here and, primarily, from abroad.
Many of us would resent the influence that foreign money would bring to bear on an Irish election. But perhaps from that resentment we might go on to consider the influence that native money has on elections generally.
Nominate her.