If Micheál Martin had picked himself to be the candidate he would have won. But Ireland’s most popular party leader has never wanted to be the President. His highest ambition always was to be the Taoiseach, and he is not ready to give it up. So he looked in the mirror and decided: what Fianna Fáil desperately needs is a mini-me. Thus Jim Gavin grinned down from the campaign lamp-posts. Balding and bright-eyed, there was something vaguely familiar about him though most people were asking: Jim who? Alas, when the candidate spoke, he had none of Martin’s conviction. There was only one way this was going to end. In tears.
That came to pass on Sunday night when the former Dubs manager dramatically stopped his election campaign after failing to come clean to both Fianna Fáil and the electorate about a 15-year-old debt of €3,300 he owed a former tenant of his unregistered rental apartment.
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