During the final TV debate on RTÉ’s Prime Time, Catherine Connolly was reminded she had said US president Donald Trump had enabled genocide.
Asked what she would say to Trump if he were to visit Ireland, she replied: “If it’s just a meet and greet, then I will meet and greet. If the discussion is genocide, that’s a completely different thing.”
She said she understood her role and those who supported her understood her role would be different once she went to the Áras.
Connolly has forged a career as an outspoken left-wing politician who holds radical views. Throughout her career, she has been sceptical and suspicious of the EU, the western powers, especially in relation to defence policy, and – according to her critics – less condemnatory of Russia.
All of that was played out endlessly during the campaign. She did not retreat from her outspoken views at all. But what she did emphasise repeatedly was that being outspoken would manifest very differently if elected president.
In her speech on Saturday evening she spoke about being “a voice for peace, a voice that builds on our policy of neutrality, a voice that articulates the existential threat posed by climate change”.
“We can shape a new R
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