President of Ireland

The main functions are prescribed by the Constitution:

Appoints the government

The president formally appoints the Taoiseach (head of government) and other ministers, and accepts their resignations. The Taoiseach is appointed upon the nomination of the Dáil, and the president is required to appoint whomever the Dáil designates without the right to refuse appointment. The remainder of the cabinet is appointed upon the nomination of the Taoiseach and approval of the Dáil; as with appointing the Taoiseach, the president is required to make the appointment without the right to appoint someone else. Ministers are dismissed by the advice of the Taoiseach and the Taoiseach must, unless there is a dissolution of the Dáil, resign upon losing the confidence of the house.

Appoints the judiciary

The president appoints the judges to all courts in Ireland, by the advice of the government.[3]

Convenes and dissolves the Dáil

This power is exercised on the advice of the Taoiseach; government or Dáil approval is not needed. The president may only refuse a dissolution when a Taoiseach has lost the confidence of the Dáil.[3]

Signs bills into law

The president cannot veto a bill that the Dáil and the Seanad have adopted. However, the president may refer it to the Supreme Court to test its constitutionality. If the Supreme Court upholds the bill, the president must sign it. If, however, it is found to be unconstitutional, the president will refuse to give assent.[3]

Represents the state in foreign affairs

[3] This power is exercised only by the advice of the government. The president accredits ambassadors and receives the letters of credence of foreign diplomats. Ministers sign international treaties in the president's name. This role was not exercised by the president prior to the Republic of Ireland Act 1948.

Supreme Commander of the Defence Forces

[4] This role is similar in status to that of a commander-in-chief. An officer's commission is signed and sealed by the president. This is a nominal function, the powers of which are exercised by the advice of the government. (See Minister for Defence.)

Power of pardon

The president has "the right of pardon and the power to commute or remit punishment".[5] Pardon, for miscarriages of justice, has applied rarely: Thomas Quinn in 1940, Brady in 1943, and Nicky Kelly in 1992.[6] The current procedure is specified by Section 7 of the Criminal Procedure Act, 1993.[7] There were plans in 2005 for paramilitary fugitives to receive pardons as part of the Northern Ireland peace process, to supplement the 1998 early release of serving prisoners after the Good Friday Agreement.[8] This was controversial and was soon abandoned along with similar British proposals.[9][10][11] Power of commutation and remittance are not restricted to the president,[12] though this was the case for death sentences handed down prior to the abolition of capital punishment.[13]

Other functions specified by statute or otherwise include:

• The president is ex officio president of the Irish Red Cross Society.[14]
• The president appoints, on the advice of the government, the Senior Professors and chairman of the council of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies;[15] the governor of the Central Bank of Ireland;[16] the members of the Irish Financial Services Appeals Tribunal;[17] the Ombudsman;[18] and the members of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission.[19]
• The president appoints one trustee to the Chester Beatty Library. This was specified in Chester Beatty's will and given effect by a 1968 Act of the Oireachtas.[20]
• The president is the patron of Gaisce – The President's Award, established by trust deed in 1985.[21]
• The president is the patron of Clans of Ireland, including its Order of Merit, since he so agreed in January 2012.[22]
• The president confers the title of Saoi on those so elected by the membership of Aosdána.
• The president is patron to several charities in Ireland.

• The president may not leave the state without the consent of the government.[23]
• Every formal address or message "to the nation" or to either or both Houses of the Oireachtas must have prior approval of the government.[24] Other than on these two (quite rare) occasions, there is no limitation on the president's right to speak. While earlier presidents were exceptionally cautious in delivering speeches and on almost every occasion submitted them for vetting, Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese made much more use of their right to speak without government approval, with McAleese doing many live television and radio interviews. Nonetheless, by convention presidents refrain from direct criticism of the government.

A Taoiseach who has "ceased to retain the support of a majority in Dáil Eireann" is required to resign, unless the Taoiseach asks the president to dissolve the Dáil. The president has the right to refuse such a request, in which case the Taoiseach must resign immediately. This power has never been invoked. However, the necessary circumstances existed in 1944, 1982 and 1994. The apparent discrepancy, referred to above, between the Irish and English versions of the Constitution has discouraged presidents from contemplating the use of the power. On the three occasions when the necessary circumstances existed, presidents have adopted an ultra-strict policy of non-contact with the opposition. The most notable instance of this was in January 1982, when Patrick Hillery instructed an aide, Captain Anthony Barber, to ensure that no telephone calls from the opposition were to be passed on to him. Nevertheless, three opposition figures, including Fianna Fáil leader Charles Haughey, demanded to be connected to Hillery, with Haughey threatening to end Barber's career if the calls weren't put through. Hillery, as Supreme Commander of the Defence Forces, recorded the threat in Barber's military personnel file and recorded that Barber had been acting on his instructions in refusing the call.[25] Even without this consideration, refusing such a request would arguably create a constitutional crisis, as it is considered a fairly strong constitutional convention that the head of state always grants a parliamentary dissolution.

If requested to do so by a petition signed by a majority of the membership of the Seanad and one-third of the membership of the Dáil, the president may, after consultation with the Council of State, decline to sign into law a bill (other than a bill to amend the constitution) they consider to be of great "national importance" until it has been approved by either the people in a referendum or the Dáil reassembling after a general election, held within eighteen months. This power has never been used, and no such petition has been invoked. Of the 60 senators, 11 are nominated by the Taoiseach, so there is rarely a majority opposed to a government bill.

The president may appoint up to seven members of the Council of State, and remove or replace such appointed members. (See list of presidential appointees to the Council of State.) The following powers all require prior consultation with the Council of State, although the president need not take its advice:

Referral of bills to the Supreme Court

The president may refer a bill, in whole or part, to the Supreme Court to test its constitutionality. If the Supreme Court finds any referred part unconstitutional, the entire bill falls. This power may not be applied to a money bill, a bill to amend the Constitution, or an urgent bill the time for the consideration of which has been abridged in the Seanad. This is the most widely used reserve power;[26] a full list is at Council of State (Ireland)#Referring of bills. In a 1982 judgment delivered under such a referral, Chief Justice Tom O'Higgins bemoaned the crude strictures of the prescribed process; especially the fact that, if the court finds that a bill does not violate the Constitution, this judgment can never subsequently be challenged.[27]

Abridgement of the time for bills in the Seanad

The president may, at the request of the Dáil, impose a time-limit on the period during which the Seanad may consider a bill. The effect of this power is to restrict the power of the Seanad to delay a bill that the government considers urgent.

Appointment of a Committee of Privileges

The president may, if requested to do so by the Seanad, establish a Committee of Privileges to solve a dispute between the two Houses of the Oireachtas as to whether or not a bill is a money bill.[28]

Address to the Oireachtas

The president may address, or send a message to, either or both Houses of the Oireachtas. Four such addresses have been made: one by de Valera, two by Robinson, and one by McAleese.[26] The approval of the government is needed for the message; in practice, the entire text is submitted.[29]

Address to the Nation

The president may "address a message to the Nation" subject to the same conditions as an address to the Oireachtas. This power has never been used.[26] Commonplace messages, such as Christmas greetings, are not considered to qualify.[29]

Convention of meetings of the Oireachtas

The president may convene a meeting of either or both Houses of the Oireachtas. This power would allow the president to step in if, in extraordinary circumstances, the ordinary procedures for convening the houses had broken down.

Under the Constitution, in assuming office the president must subscribe to a formal declaration, made publicly and in the presence of members of both Houses of the Oireachtas, judges of the Supreme Court and the High Court, and other "public personages".[40] The inauguration of the president takes place in St Patrick's Hall in Dublin Castle. The declaration is specified in Article 12.8:

I láthair Dia na nUilechumhacht, táimse, [ainm], á ghealladh agus á dhearbhú go sollúnta is go fírinneach bheith i mo thaca agus i mo dhídin do Bhunreacht Éireann, agus a dlíthe a chaomhnú, mo dhualgais a chomhlíonadh go dílis coinsiasach de réir an Bhunreachta is an dlí, agus mo lándícheall a dhéanamh ar son leasa is fónaimh mhuintir na hÉireann. Dia do mo stiúradh agus do mo chumhdach.[40]

In the presence of Almighty God, I, [name], do solemnly and sincerely promise and declare that I will maintain the Constitution of Ireland and uphold its laws, that I will fulfil my duties faithfully and conscientiously in accordance with the Constitution and the law, and that I will dedicate my abilities to the service and the welfare of the people of Ireland. May God direct and sustain me.[40]

To date every president has subscribed to the declaration in Irish. Erskine H. Childers, who never learnt Irish and spoke with a distinctive Oxbridge accent that made pronouncing Irish quite difficult, opted with some reluctance for the Irish version in 1973. Pictures of the event show Childers reading from an exceptionally large board where it had been written down phonetically for him. At his second inauguration in 2018, Michael D. Higgins first made the declaration in Irish, then repeated it in English.

Having taken the Declaration of Office, the new president traditionally delivers an address to the guests. Constitutionally all addresses or messages to 'the Nation' or to 'the Oireachtas' are supposed to have prior government approval. Some lawyers have questioned whether the speech at the inauguration should fall into the category requiring government approval. However, as it is impractical to get approval given that the new president is only president for a matter of moments before delivering the speech and so has not had a time to submit it, any constitutional questions as to its status are ignored.

Inauguration Day involves a lot of ritual and ceremonial. Until 1983 the morning saw the president-elect, accompanied by their spouse, escorted by the Presidential Motorcycle Escort to one of Dublin's cathedrals. If they were Catholic they were brought to St Mary's Pro-Cathedral for a Pontifical High Mass. If they were Church of Ireland, they were brought to St Patrick's Cathedral for a Divine Service. In the 1970s instead of separate denominational ceremonies a single ecumenical multi-faith service was held in the cathedral of the faith of the president-elect. Some additional religious ceremonies also featured: President-elect Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh attended a prayer ceremony in a synagogue in Dublin to reflect his longstanding relationship with the Jewish Community in Ireland.

Saint Patrick's Hall, where presidents are inaugurated.

In 1983, to reduce the costs of the day in a period of economic retrenchment, the separate religious blessing ceremony was incorporated into the inauguration ceremony itself, with the president-elect blessed by representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian Church, Methodism, the Society of Friends, and the Jewish and Islamic faiths. This inter-faith service has featured in the inaugurations since 1983. Since 2011, a representative from the Humanist Association of Ireland, representing humanism and the non-religious population of Ireland, has appeared alongside ministers of a religion.[41]

For the first inauguration in 1938 President-elect Douglas Hyde wore a morning suit, with black silk top hat. Morning suits continued to be a standard feature of Irish presidential inaugurations until 1997 when Mary McAleese, whose husband disliked wearing formal suits, abolished their use for inaugurations (and for all other presidential ceremonial). From then, guests were required to wear plain business suits, and judges were prohibited from wearing their distinctive wigs and gowns. Ambassadors were also discouraged from wearing national dress.

The president-elect (unless they are already a serving president, in which case they will already be living in the presidential residence) are usually driven to the inauguration from their private home. After the ceremony they are driven through the streets of Dublin to Áras an Uachtaráin, the official presidential residence, where they are welcomed by the secretary-general to the president, the head of the presidential secretariat.

That evening, the Irish government hosts a reception in their honour in the State Apartments (the former Royal Apartments) in Dublin Castle. Whereas the dress code was formerly white tie affair, it is now more usually black tie.

During the period of 1937 to 1949 it was unclear whether the Irish head of state was actually the president of Ireland or George VI, the king of Ireland. This period of confusion ended in 1949 when the state was declared to be a republic. The 1937 constitution did not mention the king, but neither did it state that the president was head of state, saying rather that the president "shall take precedence over all other persons in the State". The president exercised some powers that could be exercised by heads of state but which could also be exercised by governors or governors-general, such as appointing the government and promulgating the law.

However, upon his accession to the throne in 1936, George VI had been proclaimed, as previous monarchs had been, "King of Ireland"[43][44] and, under the External Relations Act of the same year, it was this king who represented the state in its foreign affairs. Treaties, therefore, were signed in the name of the King of Ireland, who also accredited ambassadors and received the letters of credence of foreign diplomats. This role meant, in any case, that George VI was the Irish head of state in the eyes of foreign nations. The Republic of Ireland Act 1948, which came into force in April 1949, proclaimed a republic and transferred the role of representing the state abroad from the monarch to the president. No change was made to the constitution.

According to Desmond Oulton (owner of Clontarf Castle), his father John George Oulton had suggested to Éamon de Valera towards the end of the Irish Free State, that Ireland should have its own king again, as it was in the times of Gaelic Ireland.[45] He suggested to him, a member of the O'Brien Clan, descended in the paternal line from Brian Boru, a previous High King of Ireland: the most senior representative at the time was Donough O'Brien, 16th Baron Inchiquin.[45] Oulton said that Donough's nephew Conor O'Brien, 18th Baron Inchiquin, confirmed that De Valera did offer Donough O'Brien the title of Prince-President of the Irish Republic, but this was turned down and so a President of Ireland was instituted instead.[45]

After the inaugural presidency of Douglas Hyde, who was an interparty nominee for the office, the nominees of the Fianna Fáil political party won every presidential election until 1990. The party traditionally used the nomination as a reward for its most senior and prominent members, such as party founder and longtime Taoiseach Éamon de Valera and European Commissioner Patrick Hillery. Most of its occupants to that time followed Hyde's precedent-setting conception of the presidency as a conservative, low-key institution that used its ceremonial prestige and few discretionary powers sparingly. In fact, the presidency was such a quiet position that Irish politicians sought to avoid contested presidential elections as often as possible, feeling that the attention such elections would bring to the office was an unnecessary distraction,[46] and office-seekers facing economic austerity would often suggest the elimination of the office as a money-saving measure.[47]

Despite the historical meekness of the presidency, however, it has been at the centre of some high-profile controversies. In particular, the fifth president, Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, faced a contentious dispute with the government in 1976 over the signing of a bill declaring a state of emergency, which ended in Ó Dálaigh's resignation. His successor, Patrick Hillery, was also involved in a controversy in 1982, when then-Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald requested a dissolution of the Dáil Éireann. Hillery was bombarded with phone calls from opposition members urging him to refuse the request, an action that Hillery saw as highly inappropriate interference with the president's constitutional role and resisted the political pressure.

The presidency began to be transformed in the 1990s. Hillery's conduct regarding the dissolution affair in 1982 came to light in 1990, imbuing the office with a new sense of dignity and stability. However, it was Hillery's successor, seventh president Mary Robinson, who ultimately revolutionized the presidency. The winner of an upset victory in the highly controversial election of 1990, Robinson was the Labour nominee, the first president to defeat Fianna Fáil in an election and the first female president. Upon election, however, Robinson took steps to de-politicize the office. She also sought to widen the scope of the presidency, developing new economic, political and cultural links between the state and other countries and cultures, especially those of the Irish diaspora. Robinson used the prestige of the office to activist ends, placing emphasis during her presidency on the needs of developing countries, linking the history of the Great Irish Famine to today's nutrition, poverty and policy issues, attempting to create a bridge of partnership between developed and developing countries.[47] Since 2019 the President has attended annual meetings of the Arraiolos Group of European non-executive presidents.

After the 2018 presidential election the official salary or "personal remuneration" of the president will be €249,014.[48] The incumbent, Michael D. Higgins, chooses to receive the same salary although he is entitled to a higher figure of €325,507.[49][48] The president's total "emoluments and allowances" includes an additional €317,434 for expenses.[50] The Office of the President's total budget estimate for 2017 was €3.9 million, of which €2.6 million was for pay and running costs, and the balance for the "President's Bounty" paid to centenarians on their hundredth birthday.[51]

The salary was fixed at IR£5000 from 1938 to 1973, since when it has been calculated as 10% greater than that of the Chief Justice.[52] After the post-2008 Irish economic downturn most public-sector workers took significant pay cuts, but the Constitution prohibited a reduction in the salary of the president and the judiciary during their terms of office, in order to prevent such a reduction being used by the government to apply political pressure on them. While a 2011 Constitutional amendment allows judges' pay to be cut, it did not extend to the president, although incumbent Mary McAleese offered to take a voluntary cut in solidarity.[53][49]

The president's wreath (in green) laid at Ireland's Remembrance Day ceremonies in St. Patrick's Cathedral in 2005. Presidents have attended the ceremony since the 1990s.

The text of the Constitution of Ireland, as originally enacted in 1937, made reference in its Articles 2 and 3 to two geopolitical entities: a thirty-two county 'national territory' (i.e., the island of Ireland), and a twenty-six county 'state' formerly known as the Irish Free State. The implication behind the title 'president of Ireland' was that the president would function as the head of all Ireland. However, this implication was challenged by the Ulster Unionists and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland which was the state internationally acknowledged as having sovereignty over Northern Ireland. Articles 2 and 3 were substantially amended in consequence of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

Ireland in turn challenged the proclamation in the United Kingdom of Queen Elizabeth II in 1952 as '[Queen] of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland'. The Irish government refused to attend royal functions as a result; for example, Patrick Hillery declined on government advice to attend the wedding of the Prince of Wales to Lady Diana Spencer in 1981, to which he had been invited by Queen Elizabeth, just as Seán T. O'Kelly had declined on government advice to attend the 1953 Coronation Garden Party at the British Embassy in Dublin. Britain in turn insisted on referring to the president as 'president of the Republic of Ireland' or 'president of the Irish Republic'.[n 2] Letters of Credence from Queen Elizabeth, on the British government's advice, appointing United Kingdom ambassadors to Ireland were not addressed to the 'president of Ireland' but to the president personally (for example: 'President Hillery').

The naming dispute and consequent avoidance of contact at head of state level has gradually thawed since 1990. President Robinson (1990–97) chose unilaterally to break the taboo by regularly visiting the United Kingdom for public functions, frequently in connection with Anglo-Irish Relations or to visit the Irish emigrant community in Great Britain. In another breaking of precedent, she accepted an invitation to Buckingham Palace by Queen Elizabeth II. Palace accreditation supplied to journalists referred to the "visit of the president of Ireland". Between 1990 and 2010, both Robinson and her successor President McAleese (1997–2011) visited the Palace on numerous occasions, while senior members of the British royal family – the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, the Earl of Wessex and the Duke of Edinburgh – all visited both presidents of Ireland at Áras an Uachtaráin. The presidents also attended functions with the Princess Royal. President Robinson jointly hosted a reception with the queen at St. James's Palace, London, in 1995, to commemorate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the Queen's Colleges in 1845 (the Queen's Colleges are now known as Queen's University Belfast, University College Cork, and the University of Galway). These contacts eventually led to a state visit of Queen Elizabeth to Ireland in 2011.

Though the president's title implicitly asserted authority in Northern Ireland, in reality the Irish president needed government permission to visit there. (The Constitution of Ireland in Article 3 explicitly stated that "[p]ending the re-integration of the national territory" the authority of the Irish state did not extend to Northern Ireland. Presidents prior to the presidency of Mary Robinson were regularly refused permission by the Irish government to visit Northern Ireland.)

However, since the 1990s and in particular since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, the president has regularly visited Northern Ireland. President McAleese, who was the first president to have been born in Northern Ireland, continued on from President Robinson in this regard. In a sign of the warmth of modern British-Irish relations, she has even been warmly welcomed by most leading unionists. At the funeral for a child murdered by the Real IRA in Omagh she symbolically walked up the main aisle of the church hand-in-hand with the Ulster Unionist Party leader and then First Minister of Northern Ireland, David Trimble. But in other instances, Mary McAleese had been criticised for certain comments, such as a reference to the way in which Protestant children in Northern Ireland had been brought up to hate Catholics just as German children had been encouraged to hate Jews under the Nazi regime, on 27 January 2005, following her attendance at the ceremony commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp.[54][55] These remarks caused outrage among Northern Ireland's unionist politicians, and McAleese later apologised[56] and conceded that her statement had been unbalanced.

There have been many suggestions for reforming the office of president over the years. In 1996, the Constitutional Review Group recommended that the office of President should remain largely unchanged. However, it suggested that the Constitution should be amended to explicitly declare the president to be head of state (at present that term does not appear in the text), and that consideration be given to the introduction of a constructive vote of no confidence system in the Dáil, along the lines of that in Germany. If this system were introduced then the power of the president to refuse a Dáil dissolution would be largely redundant and could be taken away. The All-party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution's 1998 Report made similar recommendations.

In an October 2009 poll, concerning support for various potential candidates in the 2011 presidential election conducted by the Sunday Independent, a "significant number" of people were said to feel that the presidency is a waste of money and should be abolished.[57]

• Douglas Hyde was the oldest president to enter office, aged 78.
• Éamon de Valera was the oldest president to leave office, aged 90.
• Mary McAleese was the youngest president to enter office, aged 46.
• Mary Robinson was the youngest president to leave office, aged 53, and the first woman to serve as president.
• Erskine Childers, who died in office, had the shortest presidency of 511 days.
• Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, who resigned, served for 674 days.
• Four presidents have served for two terms, or fourteen years in total: Seán T. O'Kelly, Éamon de Valera, Patrick Hillery, and Mary McAleese.