Diarmaid Ferriter: Occasional tension is the price of an assertive presidency via IrishTimesOpEd
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But there is no constitutional reference to policing the president in all other comments, and de Valera acknowledged in relation to the presidency: “you cannot take away from human beings their political views”. The president, he suggested, would offer to the Taoiseach “the view that the hurler on the ditch can get of the game, looking at it from the point of view of the national interest”.
The history of an assertive presidency did not begin in 1990. The role of civil servant Michael McDunphy, secretary to the first Irish president Douglas Hyde, was crucial in giving shape and meaning to the office and he was adept in protecting the interests of Hyde, and by extension, generating a respect for the status and independence of the office.
Hyde’s biographer Brian Murphy argues, “The unfair comparison that extols modern presidents for expanding the role of the office while implicitly criticising early presidents for taking a more restrained approach... lacks historical context... a more expansionist role for the presidency could not have come about without the diligent and often unglamorous work of early presidents in establishing initial credibility and respect for the office”.
During Hyde’s term there were rows about presidential access to the Taoiseach and disrespectful references to the president. De Valera defended the office vigorously. But he also had to deal with a President Hyde, who occasionally asserted his independence and referred controversial legislation to the Supreme Court for rulings on constitutionality.
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