Tanned, trim and wearing a primrose yellow shirt, Gerry Hutch was surrounded by a swarm of reporters and photographers the moment he appeared through the arrival doors at Dublin Airport earlier this week. Looking slightly bemused, as well as a little shell-shocked, at the attention, he stopped briefly to talk to them. He’s definitely running in the upcoming general election, he told them.
And as for being investigated for money laundering by police in Lanzarote, he was ‘innocent’. Recently released on bail from Spanish prison, he’d flown back to Ireland to begin his campaign but when asked what his policies were, he said he didn’t think the airport was the ‘appropriate place to talk about them’. Leaning in at times to hear the questions being fired at him, The Monk, as he is often called, was non-committal about which TD in the Dublin Central constituency should be worried about losing their seat to him.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Any seat will do me. I’m not pushed.
’ He’d had enough, it was time to move on. With a quick thumbs up for the large bank of smartphones filming him, he quipped ‘good luck’ and started walking away. It’s an extraordinary turn of events – that one of the most notorious figures in Ireland’s gangland scene has decided to make a bid to become a member of the Dáil.
Hutch has yet to set out his campaign and it’s unlikely he will canvass door-to-door with the same gusto as other candidates. Instead it’s thought he .