Michael D's Day

Higgins Romps To Victory After Stunning Gallagher Slip-Up In Final TV Debate

Thousands of people turned out in Galway city on Sunday evening to welcome home President-elect Michael D Higgins.

The 70-year-old politician, poet and campaigner was elected the 9th President of Ireland, securing a record million-plus votes by the end of the count.

The celebrations in Eyre Square followed a decisive victory for the diminutive veteran politician who topped the poll in all four provinces and won all but seven of the 43 constituencies.

After a dramatic, and sometimes nasty, campaign, the Irish public voted for the man they knew best and trusted most.

But Higgins' victory was only secured after a dramatic final TV debate where his closest rival Sean Gallagher's campaign imploded as he failed to deal with questions about his links to Fianna Fail.

Gallagher had enjoyed a 15 point lead in opinion polls published just days before the election, but there was a massive last minute switch in votes to Higgins, which saw their positions reversed in the only vote that counted.

Michael D Higgins has been a prominent figure in the Labour Party for three decades, a consistent campaigner on human rights around the world and a proponent of arts, culture and language at home.

He's considered an intellectual, and a poet, and was the candidate that displayed the best understanding of the constitutional role of the president during the campaign.

In his victory speech at Dublin Castle, he promised to be a president for all the people of Ireland - those who voted for him, and those who voted for the other candidates.

"I want to be a president too for those who didn't vote, whose trust in public institutions I will encourage and work to recover," he said.

"And always in my mind, too, will be those who have gone away and I will be their president too."

He promised a "presidency of ideas".

"You have to think your way into a new space," the President-elect said, "As someone who was from a farm, a three-roomed house, no-one belonging to me went to third-level education or anywhere, I lived by ideas all my life. One thing you can take in the presidency is that ideas will be valued," he said.

He said his first priority would be to organize a series of Presidential seminars discussing issues facing young people such as mortgages, unemployment, exclusion and mental health.

Higgins will be inaugurated at a ceremony in Dublin Castle on November 9th.

He will have no official engagements until that time, but his security will be beefed up in the interim.

Mr Higgins will use the time between now and then to script his inauguration speech, which has been used by previous presidents to set the tone and theme for their time in office.

Although the ceremony is formal, and includes strict protocols, there will also be an opportunity for President-elect Higgins to put his own stamp on the event.

Mr Higgins will serve as president for seven years.

Dramatic vote-switch in final days of campaign

Michael D has been congratulated warmly on his victory by all the other six candidates who contested the election.

But his victory only came about after a dramatic last-minute change in voting patterns in the wake of the final TV debate of the campaign on Monday night last.

On RTE's Frontline program, Sinn Fein candidate Martin McGuinness confronted front-runner Sean Gallagher about an alleged donation he collected for a businessman on behalf of Fianna Fail.

Gallagher, an Independent candidate, had portrayed himself as a former grass-roots ordinary member of Fianna Fail throughout his campaign.

But in the closing stages, the media and some of the other candidates began to highlight his close links to the party.

The central allegation concerned his role in organizing a fundraiser for Fianna Fail at which a group of businessmen were invited to dinner with the then Taoiseach Brian Cowen, in return for an expected donation of five thousand euro.

On live TV, McGuinness revealed he had spoken to a businessman who claimed that he had been invited to the dinner by Gallagher, and that he had personally handed the donation to Gallagher when he called to his home to deliver a photograph from the event.

Gallagher initially denied collecting the money, but when a Sinn Fein supporter tweeted (inaccurately it turned out) online that the party was planning to produce the businessman at a press conference the next day, moderator Pat Kenny returned to the issue with Gallagher to seek clarification.

"I have no recollection of getting a check from this guy", he said, bringing to mind a famous reference to 'mature recollection' in the 1990 campaign that cost the late Brian Lenihan Snr the race against Mary Robinson.

The audience in the studio reacted strongly.

"I can tell you, let me explain this very simply. I explained that there were two or three people that I asked. I don't know the man very well that's in question," he continued.

Later he compounded the problem by saying that he "may well have delivered the photograph. If he gave me an envelope I . . . if he gave me the cheque it was made out to Fianna Fail headquarters and it was delivered and that was that. It was nothing to do with me."

But the audience was laughing at the candidate at this stage, and Independent candidate David Norris summed up the mood of the viewers when asked for his reaction.

"The reference to the envelope was unfortunate", said Norris.

For the final two days of the campaign, the coverage was dominated by the issue of whether or not Gallagher collected the money from the businessman.

But by that stage, the actual ins and outs of the controversy did not matter.

In the electorate's mind, Gallagher was too attached to the "brown envelope" culture of cronyism between businessmen and Fianna Fail that many see as being the root cause of Ireland's economic woes.

They deserted Gallagher in their droves and switched to Higgins, perhaps the only candidate who came through the election without their reputation damaged.

Gallagher still finished second in the election, with a very respectable showing for a candidate who had never previously stood before the public in an election.

Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness came in third with a respectable vote, if not the breakthrough some in his party were hoping for.

For Fine Gael's Gay Mitchell, the election was a disaster - he finished fourth, winning just 6.4% of the first preferences at a time when his party is enjoying record support in the polls.

Independent Senator David Norris, aiming to become the country's first gay president, finished in fifth place just behind Mitchell, with Dana Rosemary Scallon and Mary Davis earning less than 100,000 votes between them.