Naomi fronts up, unlike cowardly mob outside her home

Naomi Long was going through her ministerial boxes and her husband Michael was cooking dinner at 7.20pm on Wednesday when the phone rang.

It was the PSNI telling the couple a mob had gathered outside their home and they needed to go out and close the gate to their driveway and front door.

Michael did so immediately. He saw the 40-strong crowd on the pavement, some of whom were masked, while others had their hoods up. The mob were there for over an hour and livestreamed their protest.

The Longs are seasoned politicians. Naomi has been an elected representative for 24 years, and Michael 11 years.

While they've been around the political block, they weren't expecting such a vile violation of their private lives in 2025.

Politicians are entitled to a home life. They're human beings and they have the same rights as the rest of us.

Those who stood outside the Longs' east Belfast residence weren't expressing a legitimate grievance. They were there for one reason only: to bully and intimidate.

The Alliance leader is no shrinking violet. She's a tough politician. She can give it and she can take it. But she argues her case in daylight in the public arena. She doesn't hide her face. She isn't a coward.

After the protesters dispersed, a police car with the engine running remained outside the Longs' home all night in case it was attacked. After what had happened, I doubt the couple got much, if any, sleep.

NEIGHBOURS WAKE

It wasn't just the Longs whose private lives were intruded upon. A neighbouring house had suffered a bereavement, and the family was waking their loved one on Wednesday night. They had to do that with a large protest in the street.

A decade ago, I interviewed the justice minister, who was Alliance deputy leader then, in her front room. I remarked upon the pristine condition of the furnishings, walls and flooring compared to my home.

“We haven't used this room for three years,” Naomi said.

“Even with bulletproof glass and security cameras, the front of the property was too dangerous to live in.

“When the flag protests started, the police told me I'd be shot in the house or in my office. It was as blunt as that.

“I didn't want to move out of my home, so we decided to confine ourselves to the back rooms.”

The Alliance leader received her first death threat in 2002, a year after entering electoral politics. It followed her party voting for Alex Maskey to become the first Sinn Fein lord mayor of Belfast.

She was worried not for herself but for her mum, who also lived in east Belfast. “She'd been diagnosed with breast cancer and was very ill. I was petrified that someone would attack her,” Naomi explained.

TERRIFIED

During the flag protests, Alliance constituency offices were petrol bombed. Just after 11pm on December 5, 2012, councillor Christine Bower grabbed her baby daughter from the cot and lay terrified on the bedroom floor as loyalists attacked her home.

Paint bombs hit the Bangor house, shattering the windows. The Bowers were forced to flee their home.

In more recent years, there have been left-wing and right-wing protests outside the homes of British politicians.

Class War staged a demonstration outside Jacob Rees-Mogg's London residence; Just Stop Oil protested outside the houses of Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak; and anti-lockdown activists gathered at the home of then Welsh first minister Mark Drakeford.

In the Republic, anti-immigration picketers have gathered at the houses of People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy and Tanaiste Simon Harris.

Until Wednesday, such a mob hadn't gathered at the home of any Northern Ireland politician. The protest outside the Longs' was the first, and it must be the last.

There was a lorry with a bomb in the sangar, I jumped in to drive it out but there was no key'

EXCLUSIVE DAVID O'DORNAN, Sunday Life, October 12th, 2025

LORRY LOADED WITH BOMB DRIVEN INTO RUC'S CASTLEREAGH HQ FORMER ROYAL MILITARY POLICE SOLDIER RECOUNTS FRIGHTENING EXPERIENCES DURING TWO TOURS OF DUTY IN NORTHERN IRELAND

An Army veteran has told how he saved the lives of six soldiers after steering them away from an IRA bomb that had been sent into the RUC's Castlereagh base during the Troubles.

Sgt Graham Chipperfield was serving in the Royal Military Police — nicknamed the Red Caps — when a civilian was forced to drive the deadly device into the station after being told his family would be killed if he did not.

He has recounted the terrifying incident in a new book detailing his life in the security services — the Dartford-born man having first stepped foot in Northern Ireland in 1974 — as well as sharing a story of the time he came face-to- face with former IRA chief Martin McGuinness.

Graham (72) told Sunday Life: “Castlereagh police station held the Prisoner Reception Centre (PRC) and PIRA were wanting to destroy it, because as far as they were concerned, once their boys went in there the RUC were maltreating them, beating them up, that Special Branch were in there with rubber truncheons and all that.

PATROL

“We used to have to do an hour or so on the gate, which was bloody boring at the best of times. So it was three of us in the Land Rover, two would go and have a cup of tea.

“One bloke would do an hour and we'd swap round, and another call sign would come in and away we go on patrol and they take over.

“So I was in there doing my 'stag' (sentry duty), as they say, sub-machine-gun there, looking out the hole, just watching the boys on the front gate. I'd done it so bloody often I didn't worry.

“A lorry came in with stacks of bundled up newspapers on the flatbed. He'd been in before, he was known. He used to come around and collect waste paper.

“I'd just been relieved and I went into our Portakabin where we used to rest. Suddenly I hear all this commotion going on and I thought, 'What the bloody hell is going on?' And they said, 'There's a bomb in that lorry!'”

Graham said he went into the sangar to raise the alarm with the operations room using an internal communications device dubbed a 'squawk box' and was first asked if he could move the truck with the bomb on board.

He explained: “Orders are orders. I climbed up into the cab and a thing I learned that day, you can drive a diesel lorry without the keys in it. If you start it with the keys in, you can take the keys out and the engine will keep going apparently.

“But this bloke had stalled it because PIRA had the keys. They told him, 'You take it in there and you stall it when you're indoors, otherwise your wife and family gets it.' Of course, there was no way I could start it.”

It was that at point Graham raced into action to prevent other squaddies from being caught up in an explosion which would likely have cost them their lives.

He continued: “I realised that in the Portakabin next to ours was another with all the intelligence corps lads, that was their accommodation. And there was half-a-dozen in there in bed, having come off the night shift.

“So I ran back past the bomb again, ran down the corridor to where these boys were and put the glass in on their door and put the hands through and undid it, because they'd locked the door and gone to sleep.

“I shouted, 'Grab your ID cards, get some clothes, get out the back — there's a bomb outside that door!' And they didn't argue.”

Brave Graham had to go past the device yet again to update the ops room through the squawk box before getting out the gate, where he found the lorry driver was lying on the ground having passed out, and then took further action to make sure civilians were not at risk.

He said: “A bomb this big, you're thinking there's still cars going up and down Ladas Drive. The boys on the gate, they had their own vehicle, one of the old Morris 1800s that we used to drive round.

“So I got the keys and I drove it out and I put it across the road. And I picked the internal radio up and I called up to the top and said, 'This call sign is now on Ladas Drive, blocking it, stopping any traffic.' I put the thing down, I opened the car door and boom. Up it went.

DAMAGE

“I looked up and I saw this big bundle of paper go up in the air and crash down just by the side of the car. I thought, 'Bloody hell!' It totally destroyed the lorry. It destroyed the two Portakabins and caused a lot of damage to the PRC.”

Graham, a father and now a grandfather, returned to Northern Ireland 10 years ago where he lives with his wife Alison in Co Antrim. Since leaving the armed forces, he has turned his hand to acting — winning cameo roles in shows like Game of Thrones and Derry Girls.

His military career spanned 30 years and included a stint with the Royal Air Force after the Army, but it is his two tours of duty here through the 70s and 80s that are the focus of his memoir, Secrets of the Red Caps in Northern Ireland (right), including searching the car of Martin McGuinness in Londonderry.

Graham said: “I went over and there was a car parked and I can see two figures stood at the back of it. One was a UDR soldier looking very nervous. The other one was Martin McGuinness, who obviously I knew of.

“I walked up and said to the soldier first, 'What's the problem?' He said, 'Mr McGuinness won't open the boot of his car and he said he won't let me do it either.' I said, 'Is that right Mr McGuinness?' He said, 'I'm not having a UDR soldier opening my boot.'”

Graham said that, because he was military police, the Provo turned Sinn Fein man found it more acceptable for him to search his motor instead, but it turned out he was just being deliberately difficult.

He added: “I got the keys and I went round to the boot and I grabbed him and stood him next to me. I said, 'Anything in here goes bang, you're going with me alright?'

“There was nothing in there. He was just being an arse. I sent him on his way and he said, 'Typically British.' If you'd told me 40 years ago that the man I met then would become the deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, I'd have said you were bloody mad.”

Secrets of the Red Caps in Northern Ireland is on sale now. Visit mauricewyliemedia.com for details

Conservative voters aren't the only ones frozen out in this election

MÁIRÍA CAHILL, Sunday Independent, October 12th, 2025

A friend messaged me about the presidential race: "I've never abstained from voting — but I'm probably going to in this election.” She is a lifelong Labour voter who has given decades of her life to leafleting, knocking on doors and supporting her local TD. But she cannot bring herself to vote for Catherine Connolly. She is not alone.

Just as Maria Steen's conservative supporters feel frozen out of the race, my friend feels dejected and politically homeless. Where is a sensible liberal leftie to go? Further left?

To do so, they would have to swallow the reality that they are embracing an alliance with the likes of People Before Profit's Paul Murphy, who was prominent in the disgusting 2014 Jobstown events, when a baying mob surrounded tánaiste Joan Burton's garda car. No self-respecting Labour person would be comfortable with that.

Nor can they easily stomach Connolly's trip to Syria with Clare Daly and Mick Wallace, to which the taxpayer contributed €3,691 — despite Connolly telling the media a few weeks ago that she had funded it herself.

Connolly's campaign team also includes Sinn Féin. That would have been anathema to Labour when they appointed me to the Seanad in 2015. This time last year, Mary Lou McDonald was under pressure for issuing a glowing public statement for another senator, Niall Ó Donnghaile, despite knowing that he was resigning due to having sent unacceptable messages to a teenage boy.

That boy wrote in this paper how McDonald's statement felt like a "mental stab”. Sinn Féin lied to the public for weeks about his age, despite having confirmed his correct age directly with him as the scandal broke.

Labour voters with memories are not in the habit of sitting on their niggling consciences to silence them.

Last general election

That's why they didn't transfer to People Before Profit or Sinn Féin in large numbers at the last general election. It's also why they bristle at every controversial comment Connolly makes. They know their party leadership have put themselves in the unenviable position of having to defend her.

On Wednesday, when asked whether she would hire a rapist in the Áras, Connolly said she "would have to think about that”. She reflected for a day, before clarifying she wouldn't.

Naturally, Fine Gael made hay, with Jennifer Carroll MacNeill saying Connolly was "not fit to be president” and asking how McDonald, Holly Cairns and Ivana Bacik "could back a candidate who said she'd need to reflect on whether she would hire a convicted rapist to work in Áras an Uachtaráin”.

Bacik hit back, stating Fine Gael was engaged in "desperate smear tactics”. This raised eyebrows among Labour voters who had been asking the same question as Carroll MacNeill.

It's been a pattern throughout the campaign. There was no condemnation from Labour when Connolly compared Germany's rearmament to the Nazi era. None when she said she wouldn't trust France, the UK and America into the bargain.

Labour voters are pragmatic on Europe and understand that if Ireland wants investment, good relations and neutrality, it is essential not to drag us into fights we cannot win.

When her campaign initially refused to delete an unauthorised image of Michael D Higgins from a video, the Labour leadership stayed silent. Privately, my phone lit up with messages from irate party members.

Connolly's decision to hire a woman convicted of firearm offences was admirable to many who believe in second chances. But even they concede, quietly, that to put an employee in the Houses of the Oireachtas, vetting should be undertaken. The safety of its staff, members and the many visiting members of the public should be paramount. That's the purpose of vetting. This case has exposed a significant security lapse in Leinster House, and that issue should be addressed to prevent a repeat occurrence.

Sinn Fein held out for United Ireland

Labour throwing its lot in with the Connolly campaign — without establishing consensus on what is and isn't acceptable — was like hitching a cart to a bolting horse in a mucky field, and getting a face full of mud for one's trouble. At least Sinn Féin was smart enough to demand that the candidate mention a united Ireland before they threw their lot in.

Would it have been beyond Labour to say: "We'll support you — but please don't double down on the mad stuff?”

Connolly's efforts to unite the left have in fact divided Labour members and its voters. A fractured left is just as destabilising for democracy as a broken right. And yet we have heard reams about Steen and her supporters, and very little about the left and its genuine concerns.

Still, Connolly is now in a strong position. Paddy Power is so confident that on Wednesday it paid out on all single bets on her winning.

The real victor in this election is apathy, especially among traditional voters, who once saw Labour as a steadying hand in government — tempering cuts and ideological chaos.

How ironic, then, that feeling a sense of national duty, those voters may now perform that function themselves, and choose Heather Humphreys over Connolly simply because they want a safe pair of hands in the Áras.

Our first president knew importance of winning hearts over minds

Douglas Hyde was more than a statesman — he was a visionary, writes Máire Nic an Bhaird

Máire Nic an Baird, Sunday Independent, October 12th, 2025

Douglas Hyde was more than a statesman — he was a visionary, writes Máire Nic an Bhaird

When you hear the name Douglas Hyde, what comes to mind? Ireland's first president? The driving force behind the Gaelic League? Perhaps scholars remember him as professor of Modern Irish at University College Dublin, or theatre-goers as a witty conversationalist with WB Yeats and Lady Gregory.

He was all of that. But Hyde's exceptional character goes beyond titles. He possessed an extraordinary emotional intelligence, a creative spark and an uncanny ability to connect with people across every walk of life.

He was like an Irish Red Setter — lively, loyal, endlessly sociable and full of warmth — darting effortlessly between the Anglo-Irish aristocracy at Coole Park and the native Irish speakers of Tibohine, Co Roscommon, bringing energy, joy and affection wherever he went.

That comparison would surely be deemed high praise by Hyde. His fondness for canine companionship was evident from the very first page of his earliest diary. In 1874, as a 14-year-old boy, he wrote about his dog Diver, and over the following decades he kept 13 diaries, up to 1912, recording his thoughts, travels and daily encounters, often noting the animals and birds that shared his life. His adaptability was a tool for real change.

He understood that for the Irish language to thrive, it had to be integral to daily life, tied to identity, culture and the land. When he co-founded the Gaelic League in 1893 with Eoin MacNeill, it was not a lecture in purism but a movement to awaken hearts and minds. Love the land, he knew, and you would embrace the language.

He was ahead of his time — he understood that this sense of connection and interconnectedness between people, culture and the environment is essential, long before such ideas became part of public discourse.

Hyde was a man of exceptional intellect and ability. He wrote plays, acted and honed a theatrical sensibility that made him an extraordinary orator. His gestures, timing and ability to read a crowd transformed lectures into performances that stirred both mind and heart.

At University College Dublin, students adored him. When he retired in 1932, his successor stepped in and the classroom erupted with chants: "We want Dougie! We want Dougie!” He combined intellect, humour and theatrical flair to make learning unforgettable.

In 1905, he embarked on a fundraising lecture tour of the United States as president of the Gaelic League. Over eight months, he travelled 30,577km, visited 60 cities and addressed more than 80,000 people. Every city greeted him with pomp and admiration.

In New Haven, Yale's president met him at the train station; in San Francisco, thousands attended his lecture at City Hall wearing badges showing Hyde's face — fandom reminiscent of modern concert culture. At times, audiences numbered in the thousands; in November 1905, he spoke for 90 minutes to 3,000 people at Carnegie Hall, winning over the audience entirely. Newspapers hailed him a hero.

His lectures during the tour, although deeply intellectual, were imbued with emotion. He repeatedly emphasised that the Gaelic League was neutral in religion and politics — a revolutionary stance for the time.

In each city, he was greeted at the train station by local dignitaries and this led to formal dinners, yet he embraced these occasions with natural warmth and curiosity, making time for conversations and interactions that connected him to local communities.

Beyond the celebrity, he thrived in the social fabric of the tour.

At the Cosmos Club in Washington, he discovered the Mint Julep cocktail, which he claimed eased his rheumatism, noting with typical dry humour how the mint's aroma contributed to the effect.

Hyde chronicled the tour in Mo Thuras go hAmerice (My American Journey 1937), a witty account full of personal anecdotes. He also sent postcards to his young daughters back in Roscommon, describing a skyscraper with delight: "This is called a skyscraper because it nearly touches the sky,” and joking about a man riding an ostrich: "Nach deas an capall é seo!” (Isn't this a nice horse?) He also sent greetings to Polly, their beloved pet cockatoo.

Behind this playful, affectionate surface was a pragmatic and astute man. When advised by Tomás Ua Concheanainn, the Gaelic League's chief organiser, to omit tales of drinking strong Australian wine at his home in Ratra House, Co Roscommon, from My American Journey, Hyde complied, understanding the importance of maintaining public respect. Hyde also managed remarkable fundraising achievements.

The generosity of Irish Americans was clear in the donations he received — $11,500 (€9,946) in San Francisco alone — and yet he reciprocated their trust. After the devastating 1906 earthquake, he returned the city's contribution. Overall, he raised $64,000 for the Gaelic League — a sum equivalent to more than $2m today.

When it comes to Ireland's 2025 presidential campaign, Hyde's example is instructive. Today, our challenges are different: threats to democracy and the very fabric of society, biodiversity loss, climate change and the urgent need for civic stewardship of our natural world. Yet the principle remains the same: hearts must be moved before minds.

We need to cultivate a sense of responsibility and care across society. Culture and place, Hyde demonstrated, are transformative tools, whether for language, heritage or the environment.

Hyde's embracing of the Irish language was exceptional. He did not grow up in an Irish-speaking household; as a 14-year-old, home schooled due to illness, he learned the language through social interaction with the workers and local people of Tibohine.

This experience gave him a deep commitment to heritage, culture and identity — qualities that are essential for leading the nation with both heart and vision. His example shows that leadership is most powerful when it combines knowledge and empathy, intellect and warmth, imagination and inclusivity.

Hyde was more than a professor, more than a president. He was a visionary statesman, showman, father and a bridge between worlds. He reminds us that true leadership grows from understanding, connection and concern for people and society.

Ireland, in 2025, would do well to follow his example — energetic and tireless, perceptive and attentive, gentle yet bold, adaptable to changing circumstances, clever and creative in approach, and deeply connected to the land and the living world.

Why a Presbyterian president would be a historic turning point

SAM MCBRIDE, Sunday Independent and Sunday Life, October 12th, 2025

If Heather Humphreys becomes Ireland's tenth president, she won't be the first Protestant to hold the office — but she would be the first Presbyterian, a subtle but significant distinction.

As Church of Ireland members, Douglas Hyde and Erskine Childers were adherents to an Anglicanism that remains associated with England. Presbyterianism is, by contrast, firmly rooted in the Scottish reformation. It was also founded in a greater religious ardour focused on simple services of worship in largely unadorned churches.

Few republicans today would draw on the Presbyterian Church for inspiration, yet that is the well from which Humphreys says she draws her republican inspiration.

Her republicanism is that of Wolfe Tone, not the Wolfe Tones. Understanding that says much about where Ireland has come from, and where it may be going.

In 2016, Humphreys travelled to Church House in Belfast, the headquarters of Irish Presbyterianism, to make a political speech as minister responsible for the 1916 centenary commemorations. It was far more personal than most government engagements. As a Monaghan Presbyterian, she understood why many unionists saw nothing to celebrate in what the rebels had done a century before while their forefathers were fighting for Britain in France.

She told the audience: "The very word 'republican' makes some of us uncomfortable, because of the way it has been manipulated and misused over the last 100 years. I have previously described myself as a proud Ulsterwoman, a Protestant and an Irish republican.

"When I speak of republicanism, I speak of it in its truest sense; equality, fraternity and liberty. Republicanism in its purest form is simply the right for everyone to have their say and the right to choose those who represent us — a principle upon which the Presbyterian Church is based.”

TRADITION OF INDEPENCE

At its core, Presbyterianism is very different to Anglicanism or Catholicism. Where those churches have hierarchies, equality is core to Presbyterianism to an extent that to us might seem unremarkable, but which was profoundly countercultural in past centuries.

It has no bishops, archbishops or pope. Each congregation selects elders who in turn form regional presbyteries, sending representatives to the annual general assembly where church business is decided.

The moderator is a figurehead who is changed every year, avoiding the creation of a powerful personality at the head of the denomination. Even ministers are regarded as first among equals; they are "teaching elders” who serve alongside laypeople on the eldership to provide spiritual leadership to the congregation.

There is a deeply anti-authoritarian history to Presbyterianism. As devout 17th-century Presbyterians, the Scottish Covenanters took up arms to fight pitched battles against the king's armies in attempts to secure their religious liberty.

​When Ulster's unionists looked for inspiration in their hour of need as Home Rule loomed in 1912, it was to the covenant of their Scottish ancestors that they turned for inspiration. James Craig studied the oath, adapting it to fit the circumstances and defiantly declaring that they would defeat Home Rule "using all means which may be found necessary”.

Humphreys' grandfather, Robert James Stewart, signed that covenant as a 19-year-old. Yet the covenant would be broken by unionists in six of Ulster's nine counties who abandoned their solemn promise to their compatriots in Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal. Despite the fact that the first Presbyterian structures on the island arrived with Scottish chaplains in 1642, the church's relationship with the heart of British power is complex and contradictory.

Penal laws applied to Presbyterians and other dissenting Protestants as well as to Catholics. That was one of the factors that drove some of them to make common cause with Catholics in the 1798 rebellion.

The historian Roy Foster has observed that while the exclusion of dissenting Protestants from public life was far from absolute, it nevertheless was "of great importance in helping form the adversarial Presbyterian political culture of Ulster”.

RESURRECTION

Presbyterianism remains a broad church, even if recent decades have seen it become more conservative. Its breadth stems from a curious mix of commitment to dogma and a strong belief in personal freedom.

While south of the border Presbyterianism declined after partition, it has in fact been growing in the Republic for several decades. In 1911, there were more than 45,000 Presbyterians in the counties that now make up the Republic; by 1971, that had collapsed to 16,000. It now stands at more than 23,500. Presbyterianism is only slightly behind Anglicanism as the island's second largest Protestant denomination.

Were Humphreys to win, it would mean nothing of substance because this is not a substantive office. But in what is a symbolic role it would signify something profound: a rapprochement with the descendants of those whose faith arrived on this island with the Plantation and whose ancestors pledged to fight what became Irish independence.

In an increasingly secular Ireland, that might seem irrelevant. But the ending of ancient quarrels can come in such moments of quietly benign transformation.

Connolly rocks up to Wexford, but no sign of Labour's Howlin

Independent candidate Catherine Connolly received a largely warm welcome while canvassing in the south east of the country yesterday.

And while she is being supported by Sinn Féin, the Soc Dems, People Before Profit and Labour, she was not joined on the canvass in Wexford by former Labour leader and Wexford TD Brendan Howlin - who was photographed with Heather Humphreys on Friday in the town.

Ms Connolly was asked if she spoke with Mr Howlin or if he sent his apologies. She didn't comment on his decision to be present for Ms Humphreys, but she did refer to the support of the Labour Party since the beginning of her campaign.

"I leave it up to each party as to who comes to support,” she said.

"I stood as an Independent. I'm very much an Independent candidate with an independent mind, and I was thrilled when Labour came back and said that they were supporting me - and Ivana Bacik as leader and the parliamentary party have been superb,” Ms Connolly added.

She said that another Wexford politician, Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy, has "always been very kind to her”.

"I know more than anyone else that she has to be very careful, and that's her job as Ceann Comhairle,” said the former leas ceann comhairle, who added that she would "rarely see her” when asked if there have been any words of encouragement or endorsement from Ms Murphy.

Gaffes and gripes: rivals have slipped up on occasion, too

WAYNE O'CONNOR, Sunday Independent, October 12th, 2025

This presidential election campaign has been defined by mistakes, with Fianna Fáil's Jim Gavin deciding to exit the contest after it emerged he owed more than €3,000 to a former tenant.

But what of the other candidates, and where have they slipped up in the campaign or drawn criticism?

 Heather Humphreys

Animal cruelty case

Fine Gael has denied its presidential candidate Heather Humphreys interfered in an animal cruelty case that was dropped five years ago.

Questions emerged about her potentially playing a role in the case after she passed a letter from a constituent to the Department of Agriculture before charges were dropped. The constituent was a farmer under investigation for animal cruelty.

He had previously appeared before the courts in relation to separate animal cruelty cases for which he received fines totalling €14,450. In one case, the judge described the evidence as "shocking”.

"That letter was sent to me, and my office sent it on to the Department of Agriculture without comment, without a cover letter,” Ms Humphreys said. "I absolutely abhor animal cruelty.”

 Husband's Orange Order membership

Questions over Ms Humphreys's husband Eric previously being a member of the Orange Order were also raised at her campaign launch. While Ms Humphreys said, "you'll have to ask him that, but no, he's not a member”, Fine Gael later said: "He has not been a member for almost 50 years since before he ever met Heather.”

​Drink-driving laws

Former transport minister Shane Ross said Ms Humphreys "did not help” the passage of new drink-driving laws during their time in government together, saying he could not deny reports "she was just one of several rural ministers who was critical of my drink-driving bill inside cabinet”.

When the issue arose during a debate earlier in the presidential campaign, Ms Humphreys denied opposing the legislation at cabinet. She mistakenly said, "I absolutely condone drink-driving” before correcting her remark, saying "it shouldn't be happening”.

She said she "absolutely supported” legislation that led to the automatic disqualification of all drivers found to be over the legal alcohol limit.

​Catherine Connolly

Foreign policy stance

A trip that Ms Connolly made to Syria in 2018 has come up frequently on the campaign trail. Last month she said it was a mistake to meet a supporter of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad when she visited the country with then-TDs Clare Daly, Mick Wallace and Maureen O'Sullivan.

At her campaign launch in July, she said: "I funded that trip.” It later emerged a filing with the Standards in Public Office Commission showed Ms Connolly used a taxpayer-funded allowance worth €3,500 to fund the trip.

"That's an allowance that's given to every single Independent TD. There are a number of different categories, and I tend to use it under policy and research, and that's exactly what I did.”​

  Controversial parliamentary assistant recruit

Ms Connolly's hiring of a parliamentary assistant who was previously jailed for a gun crime while a member of Éirígí led to questions over her judgment. This eventually led to the presidential candidates being asked how they would assess former criminals who were seeking to work as political staffers.

High-level gardaí had raised concerns about Ms Connolly hiring Ursula Ní Shionnáin to work in Leinster House.

Ms Connolly had to clarify that she abhors violence and does not support Éirígí, a socialist republican party that opposed the Good Friday Agreement.

 Gemma O'Doherty nomination

Ms Connolly was among the TDs who said they would give former journalist Gemma O'Doherty a nomination in her unsuccessful attempt to contest the 2018 presidential election. O'Doherty has since been accused of spreading misinformation on vaccines. "I gave her a nomination when the time came. That didn't mean I was supporting her,” Ms Connolly said.

 Legal representation

Ms Connolly was questioned on the work she did during her time as a barrister after being accused by a Fine Gael councillor of representing a bank in repossession cases.

Ms Connolly said she worked on "all sorts of cases” before being elected to the Dáil. The Bar Council of Ireland said: "It is the duty of barristers to be independent and free from any influence.”