That's probably because Gallagher feels that the more candidates in the race the more votes might be taken from Higgins - he must feel confidant in getting a significant portion of the FF vote.
It will be interesting I suspect a significant amount of people who voted for FF in the last general election will be moving over to FG at the next general election the penny has dropped with quite a few former die in the wool FF supporters who now see FG doing the things they were expecting FF to do when in office but never got round to doing ,
The time FF spent when in Government in the Galway tent including Michael looking after people who never cared about the party , they people who really cared about the party were shafted ,
FG now under Leo are beginning to look after the long term interest of former and present FF supporters better than FF ever did,
It will be interesting to see how the vote I expect people will be sending a message to Michael which will hurt Gallagher,
There will be people who voted for FF in the last general election who would vote for anyone but Gallagher when a FF supporter moves away from FF now it is for good ,
They now have another party who are doing the things the expected FF to do but did not bother doing,
It will be no 1 to FG, it will be hard for FF to do anything about it when they turned down the chance to go into Government,
FG are now looking after FF supporters better than FF have for the last 40 years,,