Michael D: poet who should be President

abour's spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Michael D Higgins, has become one of the country's most outspoken advocates of Irish neutrality ever since debate on the issues was ignited by US warplanes stopping to refuel at Shannon Airport. Now, as his party marches forward to the next election seeking a coalition with Fine Gael, it seems that the issue may become one of the key policy differences between the two parties. While Higgins is still as committed as ever to maintaining Irish neutrality in international security matters, he is slow to criticise the Foreign Policy of Fine Gael, which states that neutrality should be abandoned in favour of Ireland joining a common European Union security and defence alliance.

Labour's spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Michael D Higgins, has become one of the country's most outspoken advocates of Irish neutrality ever since debate on the issues was ignited by US warplanes stopping to refuel at Shannon Airport. Now, as his party marches forward to the next election seeking a coalition with Fine Gael, it seems that the issue may become one of the key policy differences between the two parties. While Higgins is still as committed as ever to maintaining Irish neutrality in international security matters, he is slow to criticise the Foreign Policy of Fine Gael, which states that neutrality should be abandoned in favour of Ireland joining a common European Union security and defence alliance.

As both parties prepare to move closer to a joint statement on general principles, Higgins admits that a debate on the neutrality issues is needed: "People know where I and my party stand on the issues, and it will be no different going into the next election. But a discussion will have to take place, not just on whether or not we want to be neutral, that is a very simplistic approach, we will have to discuss all the issues surrounding neutrality such as human rights." But he has already stated that abandoning neutrality as Fine Gael propose in Gay Mitchell's document, Beyond Neutrality, is something he "would not countenance".

Despite his earlier conviction that Labour would not compromise on its "bedrock values" to get into government, he says there is no longer any challenge to the decision to enter a pre-elction pact with Fine Gael and "a programme will have to be hammered out" between both parties. But he says this is a long way away: "That's all for the future. I am just concentrating on developing my own policies, and that's what I'm doing for the moment."

Last time Labour were in government, Higgins proved to be a very successful Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht. Des O'Malley's prediction that Higgins would go mad in Government was shown to be very wrong when the Rainbow took over. One of his biggest achievements was to launch the Irish language channel TG4. He also re-established the Irish film board and scrapped the controversial Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act, which banned members of proscribed organisations, including Sinn Féin, from appearing on the airwaves.

Last year, Higgins sought to contest the Presidency of Ireland. But despite having served as a successful Minister and Chairman of Labour, his party colleagues refused him the opportunity to fulfill his ambition. The party's national executive voted in favour of Pat Rabbitte's position not to put a candidate forward for presidential election. One year on, Higgins says "it is all water under the bridge now" but still maintains his position that "it would have been worth running the contest". He regrets that ""we could have recovered the expenses, but that information was not known until the very end."

The "will he won't he" speculation surrounding the decision on running for the presidency is likely to be repeated in the run up to the next general election. In fact, there is already considerable guessing about his future.

At 64 years old and following 24 years in Irish political life, Michael D, as he is fondly known by his constituents, says he has not yet made up his mind whether or not he will run. In recent years he has become a sure seat for Labour in Galway West. He is a popular character in the city where he has twice served as mayor. The poet is also an important figure in the arts, and well respected on the left of Irish politics. If he does decide to retire from political life, the party believes his seat will be safe for a successor. But he says that in the first few weeks back in the Dáil, he will be too busy concentrating on his responsibility in the area of international policy, and is "not even going to think about standing yet."