President going on trade missions would elevate them to ‘new level’ – Humphreys

If the president were to go on trade missions it would elevate them to “a whole new level”, Heather Humphreys has said.

The Fine Gael presidential candidate has pledged to “open doors” for Irish businesses abroad and to promote investment into Ireland if she were to become president.

She also said she was asking her opponent Catherine Connolly to answer “simple” questions and was not being “nasty”.

“Actually, the president going on a trade mission, it brings it to a whole new level,” she told reporters at RTE’s studios in Donnybrook.

“I’ve actually been on a state visit with President Michael D Higgins, and I see how important it is, and I can see the difference it makes.”

Asked if she would raise human rights issues as a pro-business president, she said she spoke to a woman from Gaza who has lost her three sisters, nieces and nephews.

“Those are the things that are just so awful and I will never be afraid to speak up,” she said.

She said she was not involved in any “smear” tactics against Ms Connolly, after former Fine Gael minister Ivan Yates said the party should attempt to “smear the bejaysus” out of the left-wing independent candidate.

“I don’t take advice from Ivan Yates, and I don’t even listen to his programme,” Ms Humphreys said, referring to Mr Yates’ podcast, “but I do believe that Catherine Connolly has questions to answer.”

She said those questions include asking a woman with a Special Criminal Court conviction “what she was going to do with the guns”, about using a parliamentary allowance to fund a trip to Syria in 2018 and how “it took her 24 hours” to say that she would not employ someone who is on the sex offender register to the Aras.

“Those are legitimate questions, absolutely legitimate questions. And I’ve been asked questions, I’ve answered them. You’re entitled to be asked these questions about your judgment, and Catherine’s entitled to be asked them.

“I’m not doing it in a nasty way. They’re very plain, simple questions.”

Asked has she read the Irish constitution, she said: “I certainly have read the constitution, Bunreacht na hEireann. I have a copy of it, and I have read it. I’ve definitely read it.”