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Matt Cooper: Letter row raises question of whether we get ‘two for one’ when we elect a president

It is not unreasonable to ask if President Michael D Higgins’s wife Sabina is a proxy for views he knows he cannot express publicly

President Michael D Higgins and Sabina Higgins: Sabina Higgins’s letter to the Irish Times about the war in Ukraine raises legitimate questions as to whether the President shares his wife’s opinions. Picture: Maura Hickey

The statement from Sabina Higgins, wife of President Michael D Higgins, when it came last Tuesday was an explanation of sorts, a limited clarification at best. It most definitely was not an apology for her poorly worded letter published the previous week in the Irish Times. If anything, it was a defiant reproach to her critics.

“I cannot be but dismayed that people would find anything unacceptable in a plea for peace and negotiations when ...