This contribution was originally published in the Irish Independent on October 21st 2025.

There seems to be a remarkable degree of confirmation bias in how people are judging the presidential candidates, and the Humphreys campaign is increasingly happy to play into it.

Catherine Connolly’s work as a barrister, potentially representing clients in eviction cases, is treated as a moral outrage, while Heather Humphreys’s background as a credit union manager, where initiating repossessions in the first place came with the territory, is somehow seen as valuable real-world experience.

Flaws become strengths and strengths become flaws, depending entirely on the framing. The greater risk is that this drifts beyond campaigning into populist rhetoric, where barristers are expected to refuse clients, rehabilitated prisoners are to be denied employment, and presidents are meant to smile and nod to appease allies.

Democracy depends on intellectual honesty, not selective outrage that fits the political agenda.