Political leaders opening the way for President Michael D Higgins to seek a second term without election risk diminishing the relevance of the office and highlight the many ways it is undemocratic. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar appeared to be generously offering no opposition if the First Citizen wanted to stay in the Áras for another seven years.
Neither Fine Gael nor Fianna Fáil can afford the folly of a presidential campaign while they remain on general election standby. For Varadkar, it also usefully stymies any notions his frenemy Enda Kenny might have for the highest office. Shane Ross is also opposed to running someone against Michael D as his Independent Alliance faces judgment on their time in power. This political dynamic effectively declares a disinterest in the office of the president. It's a shame, because it's in need of reform.
President Higgins could self-nominate next year, breaking his 2011 election promise to serve just one term. A true Labour man, it would follow the party's tradition of dishonouring pledges to voters. If he were unopposed, he could serve until 2025 on a mandate achieved in 2011. Hardly the best example of democracy. There hasn't been a presidential election featuring an incumbent since DeValera beat Tom O'Higgins in 1966.
Another issue is that Áras an Uachtaráin is exempt from Freedom of Information requests. We’re not always entitled to know who comes to stay at the Áras and who is being entertained at our expense. Its accounts are audited, but published figures are broad. The most recent accounts are for 2015, when the Áras spent €3.3 million, including €1.6 million on salaries for 27 full-time staff. Costs were €2.9 million in Higgins’s first year.
Poor transparency means the President has significant freedom to increase spending and staff. The Government is constitutionally barred from cutting his salary and allowances. He controversially employed his campaign driver Kevin McCarthy as executive assistant. In his first three years, €1.4 million euro was spent maintaining the grounds. This was at the height of recession, during which the President excoriated the effect of austerity on taxpayers in highly political speeches.
Leftist views
He has escaped serious criticism for promoting his personally-held leftist views, mainly because little heed is paid to presidential speeches. Right-wing commentators are infuriated, but most simply shrug. If anything, Higgins’s speeches are renowned for being too long and written in a prose beaten purple by his thesaurus.
In times of controversy, the Áras refuses direct probing of the President. In 2013 a senior aide resigned after an alleged row over access to Higgins. The Áras offered no explanation. Serious questions remain over his praise of the late Fidel Castro, an embarrassing blemish on his tenure for which he did not apologise. At the time, a plan for President Higgins to speak to the media at the Cuban Embassy was scrapped and he escaped questions.
There is a propagandist tone to the coverage the President receives on the State broadcaster RTÉ, where incumbents are treated to soft interviews and excessive coverage of dull foreign visits high on symbolism but low on the practical. He has never been questioned directly about matters of controversy, remarkable for a public office held by a man whose theme is "the importance of ethics".
His close personal friends have argued publicly that he should not be satirised. This is an attitude that befits a monarchy rather than a republic. They fail to see the main object of satirising Michael D is not his height, but the absurd stage-plummy accent he adopted at Windsor Castle and never relinquished. Also deserving of parody is his narrow view of what comprises the arts. You won’t see anti-establishment figures at Áras parties or artists with contrarian views on State centenaries.
Centenary
It’s little wonder when you consider the light treatment of our presidents that the office holder is always popular. The next term in the Áras is an important one as the State marks the centenary of the War of Independence and the Civil War.
Yet it’s hard to imagine a candidate more suitable for that period than Michael D Higgins, a cultured man with genuine historical expertise whose own father fought in both wars. His promise to serve a single term was a mistake, and it was a result of unjust focus on his age. If anything, the perfect signal against age discrimination would be to have an octogenarian Head of State.
A second Higgins term might also delay what feels like a horrible inevitability that a future president will be a TV star or other celebrity. Let’s just hope that in the spirit of commemorating our hard-fought freedoms, the undemocratic aspects of the office don’t prevent the people from providing a fair mandate for our First Citizen over those seven significant years.
Oliver Callan is a writer and satirist