Anyone not already confused by the purpose of the presidency should be by now.
People Before Profit’s Paul Murphy wants to use it to “defend the triple lock”. Catherine Connolly sees “a rare opportunity to elect a voice for the people”, as if the electorate had somehow missed that point before.
Aontú’s Peadar Tóibín is going with the bald statement that “the presidential election will be a referendum on Simon Harris”.
To boost his post, Tóibín used the hashtags #ResignHarris and #JusticeForHarvey – the first a reference to Simon Harris’s 2017 promise that no child would have to wait longer than four months for such surgery and the second to Harvey Morrison Sherratt, the nine-year-old boy who received long-delayed surgery for scoliosis and spina bifida last November but died following a sudden deterioration in July.
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In 2024, Harvey’s name inexplicably disappeared from a CHI active spinal surgery waiting list. By the time he got the surgery last November, his ribs were crushing his lungs and his agonising struggle to breathe – documented on social media by his parents – was almost impossible to watch.
In her keynote address at the annual Michael Collins commemoration in Béal na Bláth, Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill invoked Harvey’s name to highlight the erosion of public trust.
Referring to the Dublin rally for Harvey the previous day, she said it was “very clear ... there are many ways our society can and should do better by its citizens. We can, we must, and we will do better. This is the essence of politics and always will be”.
But the essence of politics in practice is another day’s work.
Harvey’s parents, Gillian and Stephen, are a politician’s worst nightmare; articulate, focused, tenacious, with a deep understanding of the reach and power of social media.
[ Hundreds gather in Dublin to remember Harvey Morrison SherrattOpens in new window ]
When a headline described them as “lashing out” at Harris, Gillian Sherratt was coolly dismissive: “‘Lashing out’ is far from what we are doing. What we are doing is advocating, being activists and fighting for what is right. We will never see true #JusticeForHarvey ... However there are hundreds, maybe thousands of children continuing to be failed by CHI and this Government and the best type of justice we can hope for is that this never repeats itself ... We need to see real change to this abysmal health service ... But yeah, we’re getting ‘personal’ with the man that promised things would change”.
To maintain focus on the message, the couple had asked supporters not to bring flags, Irish or Palestinian, or political banners to Saturday’s rally.
Any effort to keep party politics out of such a campaign is sensible; only an ideological purist would argue that compassion is a trait unique to opposition politicians, especially those with no ministerial experience or who preside over a chaotic system 90 minutes up the road. But Saturday’s rally with its deeply moving images became a platform for Sinn Féin, People before Profit and Aontú.
Challenged about it on social media, Gillian Sherratt replied that the politicians who spoke had been invited to do so “because they showed support and solidarity” to affected families during Harvey’s life.
She said that while she “absolutely” does not agree with all their policies, they were all united on the CHI’s and the State’s failures. She signed off with the now routine #Justice for Harvey and #ResignHarris.
Clearly the Government side has a lot of catching up to do. People’s stance on Simon Harris’s fun selfie in a bucket hat at the Oasis gig probably depends on whether a) they think politicians should never take a holiday, or b) should exercise discretion when they do, especially when a petition for the politician’s resignation is building against a tragic background. It would have been a good time for Harris to take option B.
It would also have been negligent of Carroll MacNeill at Béal na Bláth to omit a reference to Harvey and the need to do better.
Yet for some in Fine Gael, her words were perceived as a sacrilegious dig at the leader by an ambitious lieutenant, as if silence would make it all go away.
The Minister later backed her statement with fighting words about high noon meetings to sort out the waiting lists and a timeline on Harvey’s care. The content of those discussions will have to be communicated in frank and detailed terms to begin the Minister’s task of restoring public trust. The Morrison Sherratts will not go quietly.
But to suggest that any of this is somehow related to the election of a president is misguided nonsense.
The Irish electorate has shown repeatedly that it can distinguish the role of the presidency from the day-to-day political mud-wrestling. Recall that Fine Gael was on 40 per cent in the polls in 2011 but its presidential candidate still lost his deposit.
It’s already evident that some would-be candidates need some guidance on the constitutional role. Experienced politicians might show some responsibility in how they frame that guidance.
