A few weeks ago, when he was considering his candidacy for the title Day, Dublin Gangster figure Gerard Hutch asked his friend Paddy Corcoran if he had a chance.

“The biggest criminals in Ireland are already there,” Corcoran remembers telling Hutch before referring to the €335,000 spent by the Government on a cycle shelter for Leinster House.

This is not an isolated view, and Hutch has some support in the north inner city where he grew up and where many of his family members still live. A recent poll published in a Sunday newspaper suggested that Hutch could get 8 percent of the vote in the election. Dublin Central Constituency – not enough to obtain a seat, but enough to put pressure on certain other protest candidates.

Corcoran, president of the Corinthians Boxing Club in Summerhill, in the city centre, said people in the area would not be deterred by Hutch’s criminal past. “He takes care of people in the north inner city who need help. He never looks for praise or anything.

Hutch (61), nicknamed The Monk because of his reputation for sobriety and quiet living, returned to Dublin on Monday morning with the intention of registering as an independent candidate. He has until Friday to file his papers. An election official said it would be next Thursday before they could confirm who is registered as a candidate.

During Hutch’s decades-long criminal career, the state made numerous attempts to put him behind bars. Usually, Hutch emerged on top.

He got his start in organized crime as part of an inner-city gang led by notorious drug dealer Eamon Kelly before pulling off some of the biggest heists in state history.

These include the £3 million armed robbery at the Brinks Allied depot in 1995 and the £1.3 million robbery at the Marino Mart in 1987.

Huge resources were devoted to capturing Hutch, but his meticulous planning meant he was always one step ahead of Gardaí.

By the late 1990s, Hutch had apparently retired from crime and began investing his money in real estate. Over the next few years he amassed millions in assets in Ireland and abroad.

A £2million settlement with the Criminal Assets Office in 2000, for unpaid taxes, this didn’t really slow him down.

Hutch was brought back to the front lines of crime in 2015 when he attempted to defuse a simmering feud between members of his family and the Kinahan organized crime gang.

This failed, and when his nephew Gary Hutch was murdered by the Kinahans, Hutch allegedly orchestrated the 2016 Regency Hotel attack to eliminate Daniel Kinahan. Kinahan escaped but his friend David Byrne was killed.

He was finally tried for the attack last year after being extradited from Spain. His prosecution before the Special Criminal Court relied primarily on the testimony of former Sinn Féin Jonathan Dowdall, advisor and former trusted associate of Hutch.

The court found Hutch not guilty of murder after ruling that Dowdall was an unreliable witness. However, he said he believed he was in control of the assault rifles used in the attack, offenses for which he was never charged. Hutch was free to return to Spain and continue running his real estate empire.

Last month, he began signaling that he was planning a general election run. The following week, he was arrested in Spain as part of a major money laundering investigation. Hutch’s home in Clontarf was also searched and he was remanded in custody in Tachiche Prison in Lanzarote.

He appealed the decision to refuse him bail, arguing that he had the right to return to Ireland to participate in the democratic process. To the surprise of many observers, prosecutors agreed with him and the court ordered his release on bail of €100,000.

In making its decision, the court relied on EU case law according to which political candidates who are under prosecution but have not yet been convicted should be able to stand for election.

For Corcoran, the timing of his arrest raises some questions. “Why did they just arrest him when he decided to run for government? he asks. “It’s plain and simple, isn’t it?”

There is no evidence of a plot to prevent Hutch from running. The money laundering investigation has been ongoing for at least two years and is being led by Spanish police and not Irish authorities.

Another belief, shared by some gardaí, is that Hutch knew he was going to be arrested and began planning his bid to ensure he was released on bail. This would not have been the first time he received information that he was going to be arrested. However, there is also little evidence to support this claim.

It’s also possible that Hutch has a sincere desire to serve his community. He has a long history of investing in the area, including buying the Corinthians boxing gym in 1998 and renting it to the club for €1 a year.

It has been speculated that he will use the club as his campaign headquarters, although Corcoran claims to have heard nothing about this. “Gerry does his own thing.”

In the unlikely event that Hutch is elected, he would be far from the first criminal to hold a seat in the Dáil. As recently as 2020, independent TD Michael Lowry comfortably top of the poll in County Tipperary two years after being convicted of a tax offence.

A number of Sinn Féin TDs were elected despite convictions relating to the Troubles, while some left-wing TDs won seats despite public order convictions relating to protests.

“In the early years there would have been a number of TDs who had been tasked with delivering a deadly weapon, such as Dan Breen Or Frank Aiken“, says Michael Gallagher, professor emeritus in the Department of Political Science at Trinity College Dublin. “But obviously in a quite different context.”

Hutch could also be reassured by his re-election as President of the United States. Donald Trumpwho has 34 felony convictions related to a hush money case.

“Maybe Gerry Hutch will print “I Vote for Felon” T-shirts; It seemed to work for Trump! Gallagher speculated.