Interview: Brian Hayes

“When was my last Hot Press interview?” asks Minister Brian Hayes as we take our seats in his surprisingly down-at-heel Leinster House office. “1998? God almighty! A lot has happened since then.”

It most certainly has. Having been elected as a TD for Dublin Southwest in the 1997 general election, Hayes was just 28 years old. In that interview – conducted weeks before his marriage to a fellow Fine Gaeler – he came across as a proudly self-proclaimed young fogey.
Dubbed “the Boy Wonder” by the media, he seemed to have lived his life accordingly, telling interviewer Liam Fay that he’d never smoked a spliff, felt guilty about not attending Mass regularly, and felt that feminists needed to have a fundamental rethink. He also expressed an ambition to be Taoiseach one day.
In 1998, the country was just beginning to enter its ill-fated boom period. With Fianna Fáil drunkenly throwing public money around like confetti at a boyband wedding, Hayes’ party suffered badly in the 2002 election. Although he lost his seat and returned to the Seanad, he was re-elected in 2007, just as the Celtic Tiger entered its death throes. While he supported Richard Bruton’s challenge to Enda Kenny’s leadership in 2010, he has obviously been forgiven: when Fine Gael went into government he was made Minister of State at the Department of Finance, with responsibility for the Office of Public Works and Public Sector Reform.
Although friendly and pleasant, Hayes also seems slightly guarded. His assistant sits in on the interview and places his own digital recorder in the middle of the table.

OLAF TYARANSEN: What’s your earliest memory?
BRIAN HAYES: Going into a hospital ward at, I think, about two years of age for an eye operation, and being scared. And seeing white everywhere I went. It was Temple Street Hospital, I was getting my eyes done. A shocking memory, but that’s my earliest.
Traumatic?
Yes, very traumatic. When your mother leaves you (laughs). In those days mothers and fathers went home. Nowadays, we have a much better view of kids’ medicine: the parents stay with the kids in the hospital. So translating that to the big debates on the National Children’s Hospital, I know a bit about it.
Did you have any brothers or sisters?
I’ve two older sisters. My dad passed away in 2002, my mother’s alive – she’s 81.
Your father was Church of Ireland and your mother was Roman Catholic. What kind of religious upbringing did you have?
Well, in those days, of course, all Catholics had to agree before they involved themselves in a mixed marriage that all the kids from that marriage would be brought up Catholics. That was the rule, so we were all brought up Roman Catholics. And I still regard myself as a Catholic.
Did your father ever attend Mass with you?
Once a year. Christmas! It was an interesting household in that when the North was brought up as an issue, both my parents would have distinct views on it because of maybe their own religious views at the time. I was always interested in the issues in the North, and that got me interested [in politics] because the debates in the household were always interesting.
Were both parents Dubliners?
Yeah, my father was a fourth generation Dub, my mother a second generation Dub. Although I went to boarding school for six years in Garbally [College] in Ballinasloe.
You chose to go to boarding school…
Yeah. I was the only boy in the household, and a friend of my mother had sent her kids down there. I wanted to see what it was like to go away from home at 12 years of age. Sounds a bit stark now. The agreement was that I’d go for a year, and see how I got on, and I stayed.
What did your folks do?
My mother worked in the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation, which is a trade union. She worked there for many years. My father was a sales rep for Nestlé, which later became Johnson Brothers, so he was the original Willy Loman, Death Of A Salesman. He died in his mid-70s.
Were you a good student at school?
I loved history, I loved economics, and they’re the subjects I went on to study [at university]. I was a diligent student. I enjoyed debating and politics. Politics was kind of in me at a young age. I don’t know why. My parents have no political background. The North was my way into politics. I had been a member of an organisation called New Consensus, which was trying to challenge dogmatic Nationalist thinking here in the South. And my first campaign that I ever took part in was the divorce referendum campaign, which Garret [Fitzgerald] put in ’85 or ’86. The idea of a 16-year-old, snotty-nosed kid going around the country arguing for divorce – it’s a bit presumptuous, isn’t it? We were resoundingly defeated.
Did you know Garret?
I was actually really privileged to meet him six weeks before he died. He invited me to lunch. He was living with his daughter, and we had a wonderful lunch. It went on for about three-and-a-half hours. I put it to him that, economically, that government was a bit of a disaster. He kind of agreed. But the thing that Garret did do in the ‘80s was to provoke the debate on the big issues in terms of constitutional Nationalism and reaching out to Unionists in the North and redefining. Nationalism. And equally putting the big issues on the table like the abortion issue, the divorce issue and contraceptives, and really trying to take the country forward in a new direction. I was really inspired by that – and still am. I actually asked Garret what was his biggest mistake, and he said to me, “getting involved in the whole abortion issue”. He said promising a referendum was a disaster for the country. It’s interesting that, so many years later, we’re still at this.
It’s crazy that we are…
Politicians handled this issue appallingly over the years, and it goes back to that ridiculous decision to put it into the constitution in the first place, much of it brought about by a trend in America at the time where these things had to be enshrined in the constitution. And all those who argued – Dick Spring, John Rogers, Michael Noonan, Peter Sutherland – that we shouldn’t go down this road were all proven right.
Where do you stand on the abortion issue personally?
I’m very much in favour of the legislation that we’re going to put through. I think the great majority of people in this country want to see the State dealing with the issue once and for all by way of resolving the X case. I was always in favour of that and it’s ridiculous that, over the past 20 years, it hasn’t happened. I think the great majority of people want to see the issue of X resolved, want absolute legal certainty for women and their doctors in this country, and also want to ensure that if women are having terminations in the UK, which we know they are…
Five thousand a year.
Yeah, that those issues are dealt with and the support is given for those women. Now do people want to see a liberal abortion regime in the country? No, I don’t believe they do. But it’s in that middle ground that we’ve got to find a solution to this. I’ve also been guided by my mother on this. My mother gave me great advice a few weeks ago. She heard me on television. Most of the time I’m answering questions about the economy, but the abortion issue was up and she rang me the next day and she said, “I saw you on the television last night,”. I said “I was mother, yeah,” and she said, “What do you know about abortion?” And when your mother at 81 years of age asks you that question, you think long and hard. I was looking for an answer, really, because what do I know about abortion? What does any man know about abortion, quite frankly? So I said, “Well, I was in a labour ward three times in The Coombe in the last decade-and-a-half”, when my wife was having our kids and she said to me, “Yeah, and you were as useless then to the proceedings as you are now!” She says, “If men could have babies, there’d be no babies”. So I’m more than happy that this issue would be dominated by women, and not by men. So here’s a woman in her eighties, who’s a Roman Catholic, but understands the necessity for legislation. So I think actually, the public are way ahead of the politicians on this issue. And I think what we have to do between now and July is to get this legislation through.
If a woman gets raped and becomes pregnant, she won’t be able to have an abortion in this country. Surely that’s wrong?
Yeah, there’s a lot of things that are wrong. The dilemma is that there is a constitutional protection given to the rights of the unborn, and that goes back to this referendum that was passed then. I think what we’ve got to do is deal with the issue that is unresolved for the past 20 years, which is X, and do that in the best way possible. I think there is a natural majority in the Dáil for dealing with that issue, and I think there will be progress. Is there hypocrisy in the position? Of course there is! But the task of political leadership on this issue is to bring the majority moderate community with us; not the extremes because they’ll never be satisfied on either side. All of the nonsense that they go on with, appalling attacks on my colleagues from elements of the pro-life gangs, as I call them – we won’t be put off by that kind of intimidation.
What kind of intimidation?
There is real intimidation going on the ground, particularly in rural Ireland – mad people. And I’m not referring to the genuine pro-life position, which is respectful of others and argues the case. But there are elements to this debate which are literally mad, and they see this as some kind of last cultural war. It’s nothing to do with abortion. They see this as some kind of way in which the country has gone and they will take one final stand against this. And some of the stories I am hearing against my colleagues… (shakes head sadly).
Such as?
I met this lunatic, who doesn’t live in my area but camps outside our church every week or so, in case they see me going in – sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t – and describes me as the ‘Minister for Abortion’ and tells me he knows where I live! So if that’s the level of debate that is around the country… but thankfully the great majority moderate position doesn’t associate with either of the extremes. They want the issue of X to be resolved, and the certainty given to women, and that’s what we intend to do.
What do you think of the Church’s threat to excommunicate politicians who vote in favour of abortion legislation?
Well, I don’t know is it a threat? Certainly any comment, in where I have attended a religious service and have heard a priest or a clergyman speak on this issue, they have been more than respectful and I don’t think that is the Church position quite frankly. I don’t think it’s very helpful if people have suggested that.
Didn’t [Boston] Cardinal Sean O’Malley threaten to boycott Enda Kenny’s speech at Boston College over the issue?
Yeah, but the Irish church hasn’t made this point about ex-communication. Yeah, I find that quite astonishing, to suggest that the Taoiseach is proposing some radical new departure for abortion law – it’s totally way off line. I think the Taoiseach got it absolutely right when he said the only book that he’s responsible for on behalf of the Irish people is the constitution. He spoke for hundreds of thousands of people around the country who want a tolerance and a respect for religious belief, while at the same time recognising that this is a republic. Our task is to produce law as lawmakers, not because of our attachment to one faith or another, but to do it on the basis of the constitution.
Going back to your schooldays, what kind of music were you into?
The Cure. Em… I can’t remember what else I was into back then. Now I like Keane, Divine Comedy, that kind of Hush Puppy music, you know, that women in their thirties enjoy (smiles).
Were you into books?
Biographies and history. I’ve absolutely no creativity at all. I’m a facts and figures man. To this day that’s all I read. The problem with this job is getting time to read books when they give you all these briefs to read every night.
Being in an all-male boarding school, did you not feel cut off…
From the other sex? We used to meet them in town on Fridays and Saturdays in Ballinasloe. No, I enjoyed my time in school. I think there is a lot of evidence to show that boys do better, academically, in an all-male environment. Girls do well anyway!
Did you always want to be a politician?
I think when I was younger, I did, yeah. Not so certain now!
In your last Hot Press interview you said you’d like to do ten years in politics and then move to something else.
I think if I was doing it again, I wouldn’t go in at 24. I think it would be much better to go into politics in your forties and achieve something else first. But an opportunity arose and I went for it. That’s the thing about politics. As the opportunity arises, you have to go for it. But looking back on it, what did I know at 24?
Did you think you knew everything?
I probably did. You know the arrogance of 20-year-olds, but we need that in the system. Michael Noonan made this point to me the other day, and I think he’s right: [the future of] politics in this country is going to be people who just go into it for 10 or 15 years. And I certainly don’t want to be doing it all my life. I think I owe it my family, really, to get out of it at some point.
Were you popular with women in your teens?
You should ask them, I don’t know! (laughs) I don’t think I was.
What age did you lose your virginity?
What age did I lose my virginity? Do you know, I can’t remember…
Come on! You always remember your first time!
I don’t think it was anything to write home about! I don’t know what age I was.
You took a bullet for the party, didn’t you, in 1994? Standing in a by-election you knew you couldn’t win…
Yeah, I think they’d asked about 40 people to stand ahead of me and then John Bruton, who I was working for at the time, said it to me one evening. He came into the office. “By the way,” he said, “you’ve to be the candidate in this election.” I said, “Why me?” and he said, “Because we’ve asked everyone else and nobody will do it.” So that was it really!
He rewarded you for that later, with a Seanad seat.
Well, he became Taoiseach by fluke. If Albert Reynolds’ government hadn’t fallen out with Dick Spring at the time, John would have never become Taoiseach. He was very kind to me when he appointed me to the Senate then, at a very young age.
How was it being a senator at that age?
A bit unreal, quite frankly. I always remember coming into the Senate and I think, for the first month or so, I spoke every day. I was delighted to be there. After about two or three weeks, one of the old-timers said to me that he’d met a lot of people in this place who’d talk themselves out of a job. “I think you’re one of them,” he says. So that was good advice! So then I was elected to the Dáil in ’97 at 27 years of age, and then I lost in 2002.
Was that bruising?
It knocks a lot of chips off your shoulder, I can tell you. It was a really good experience, looking back. Obviously at the time it was dreadful, but it does teach you: not everyone wins.
Did you lose badly?
Yes. But everyone lost badly in 2002. We were just irrelevant at the time. The economy was roaring. Fianna Fáil were going to get another five years, and we were an irrelevance. But I came back in 2007.
Though the economy was still booming then…
Yeah. I mean it looked like we were going to win the election, but then Bertie Ahern turned it around. Thankfully for us anyway. It was the first bit of luck Fine Gael got in a long, long time! We weren’t elected into government in 2007, as the whole thing collapsed. But our task now, of course, is to clean up the mess.
Did you welcome John Bruton’s recent public comments on austerity?
Well, he’s said a number of things over the last few weeks – about abortion to financial services to austerity. I think he’s right about austerity. I think for people to present this as some kind of policy alternative – that you can have austerity or no austerity – is just untrue.
But was he the right person to say it?
Well, John is still in the public arena.
He’s a man on a €140,000 a year pension, paid from the public purse. Him talking down to people about austerity was just irritating.
I can understand why people would think that. I’ll put it this way: as a former Taoiseach, you have to be very careful about what you say. I think the model that Liam Cosgrave employed is the best model for any former Taoiseach in that he really only speaks about things of a historical nature. He doesn’t speak about current events. Because he knows that if he did that it would cut across what the government are doing. I think we all need to be conscious of that, including John.
Bruton isn’t necessarily the most respected figure.
I think John is respected. I don’t agree with everything John says. I fundamentally disagree with his view on the abortion issue at the moment, and he knows that. But I think John is a respected figure. But I’m just saying that we all have to be conscious about what we say because sometimes it cuts across what colleagues are trying to do in government. Of course, John currently works in the financial area representing the IFSC and his observations are always very useful.
Has austerity as a policy not been totally discredited at this stage? First off, [former head of the IMF mission to Ireland] Ashoke Mody said that the austerity-only policy was a mistake. It has since been revealed that the research on which the austerity model was based [by Professors Caren Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University] was fundamentally flawed.
Austerity by itself will solve nothing, but we still have to deal with the problem that every month the difference between what we take in and what we spend is about a billion euro – and that’s a real in your face issue. You have a household budget, I have a household budget, and if you have a massive debt, you can only deal with what money is coming into the house. And for a small open economy like Ireland, that’s the reality. Now for people to suggest that we are going to get money from other people… and the same group of people had suggested that we are not going to pay back those other people, by the way. Who are these other people that are going to lend us this money to keep the show on the road? I’d love to know.
What are your feelings on something like the Corrib gas field being sold for a song by Ray Burke and Bertie Ahern?
There is a natural resource there. There aren’t huge numbers of people who are knocking into each other trying to invest in offshore gas in the west of Ireland.
The deal that was done gives nothing to the Irish people.
Firstly, I think it’s important that, you know, whatever deal was done in the past we’re not responsible for that. I heard Pat Rabbitte on the radio yesterday, and I agree with him, that you have got to make the tax system attractive enough for people to come in, to invest. These are speculators. Everytime you put a big hole in the seabed and try to find gas or whatever, you spend truckloads of money. Now if the PLCs are not going to do it, who else is going to? We don’t have the money to do it!
So you just give it away instead?
No, you have a licensing regime that’s robust and strong that you extract everything you can from it. But for people who are comparing our situation to Norway, or Scotland or the UK, what they are failing to see is that there is a geological difference between the finds there and the finds here. And we have to strike that balance. If you are setting up a licensing regime where you’re not offering incentives for people to come in, they won’t come in. And we haven’t got the money to willy-nilly go around the seabed off our shoreline and try to find these wells.
So you support the status quo on Corrib.
I think there’s a load of headcases out there, actually. The Corrib crowd, I suspect some of it is inspired by grubby politics. But the great majority of people in Mayo, as I understand it, want to see onshore gas because of their connectivity and because, at the moment, they can’t obtain the gas in the area. We want to see it because we want to export the thing, now we have the interconnector between Britain and Ireland – incidentally, put there thanks to EU money. So the future is actually exporting this resource as a means of obtaining money to this country.
But surely it’s Shell who’ll be exporting the gas?
The licensing regime that I’m refering to is what will happen under this government. A deal was done by a previous administration, and I think there are question marks over that, but they can answer that. I am not answering that for them, thanks very much. You can’t retrospectively go in and change an existing deal, what you can do is change the licensing…
But if a deal is suspect, surely you can go back and closely examine it and say, “Well, hang on, this needs to be revisited”?
When the courts tell me it’s obviously suspect, I’ll respond.
You came in for a lot of flak when you cut the carer’s allowance.
Every time you reduce expenditure you come in for flak – and rightly so because you are hurting people. We said we would keep basic social welfare rates and tax, and we haven’t cut those. We said we were going to reinstate the national minimum wage, we’ve done that. We said we would take 300,000 people, the lowest paid people, out of paying Universal Social Charge, we’ve done that. We said we were going to increase new tax credit for people who bought [houses] between 2004 and 2008, the negative equity generation, and we’ve done that. So in a very tight budgetary situation, where we have taken out about 25-and-a-half billion since 2008 – and there is four or five billion to go over thenext two years – we are nearly there. It’s my message to people that we’re nearly at the end of this. It’s been bloody awful for people, and we understand the patience of people putting up with this. But the big prize is to get the economy working again, and to get the jobs back into the economy, and you’re not going to do that in a small open economy if you keep putting off on the kinda never-never basis the issue of the budget. The country cannot prosper unless we get our budget deficit down. We will be judged on what we do over five years, not two years or three years.
Do you consider Croke Park II to be a defeat for the government?
On the contrary, we have seen one dispute over a 48-hour period in Bus Éireann. We’ve seen 10 unions who previously were voting ‘no’, who are now going to go back to their executives with new proposals. This has been Brendan Howlin’s finest hour. I think his negotiating has been absolutely on the money. There is a realisation amongst the trade unions – the public sector unions, in particular – that the world is changing. There has been a lot of pain for public servants in terms of reductions, and they know that an overarching deal is better than having no deal. We are nearly at the end of this. Are people seriously saying that we go back to the ‘80s with strikes and industrial actions? I am hoping that we can do a deal. I’m optimistic.
You were involved in Richard Bruton’s leadership heave against Enda Kenny in 2010.
Listen, I’d always advise people in their time in politics to go through one heave, but one heave only. I think it’s an experience that shows you all the good bits and the bad bits in politics, and the frailties of human beings as well. I think what’s remarkable is how quickly the party united after the decision. I think Enda Kenny came out of it in a very, very strong position, and I think the support he got from the country in the last general election is hugely important for him now. I think by assembling around [him] a team of people who came from different sides of that debate, he has shown himself to be open and encouraging to those people who didn’t back him, including myself. He has given us an opportunity to serve in government, and we are very grateful for that. I think he has done a super job. I am sure he didn’t appreciate it at the time, but the test that he was put through, he came out the winner. He came out stronger – and the public saw him in a different light – after that.
There is a perception of Enda Kenny that he avoids the hard questions:, refusing to appear on Matt Cooper’s The Last Word or on Vincent Browne’s TV show.
Every day in the Dáil he’s answering hard questions. The actual barometer of a political leader is: are they there to answer questions in the national parliament to the leaders of the opposition and to opposition TDs? Two days a week, he is doing that.
There’s a big difference between a Dáil exchange and a sustained media interview.
It’s his choice. It’s not up to them to decide. Certain elements of the media obsess about themselves. The public couldn’t care less. I mean, government today is complicated, it’s 24/7, driven by social media, and I think the clever elements of journalism realise that’s where its gone. And trying to communicate a message through all that noise is difficult. As Taoiseach, he will communicate as he sees fit. I think he is very open. I don’t see a huge criticism.
Are you on Twitter or Facebook?
No, not interested in Twitter. I don’t get it. Facebook, sometimes – it can be a useful way of dealing with queries. But who’d be arsed listening to me? If I have something to say, I’ll say it in the Dáil or release a press statement. I think some politicians pretend to have an interest in Twitter to try to seem cool or something. Not for me, thanks.
What makes your blood boil?
What makes my blood boil? (long pause…). The Independents in the Dáil. They make my blood boil.
Which ones in particular?
All of them. They’re just commentators and they have no solutions. They’re just poseurs.
All of them?
Yeah, the great majority are just poseurs. It’s all about looking good and sounding good, but they’ve no solutions.
You’re not a Ming fan?
Oh sure, he’s just an irrelevance (waves hand). He’s shot himself in the foot so many times now, it’s hard to count. A lot of people in this country they’re kind of – David McWilliams, Shane Ross, that kind of brigade, they’ve betted a lot on the country going under. You know, the kind of constant doom and gloom… “We’re on the wrong track here”; “They’re not going to fix this problem”; “Give two fingers to the ECB and see where we go.” You know, Stephen Donnelly’s kind of Argentinian experiment. He says to me, “Look what happened in Argentina, Brian!” Yeah, look what happened – a quarter of the population went hungry for about a year! That kind of look good, sound good, bullshit politics. I think what’s going to happen in the next election is they’re all going to be wiped away (sweeps hand disdainfully). Wiped away!
Mícheal Martin seems to be making an impression.
Well, I think that’s why they’re going to be wiped away. I think Fianna Fáil will come back.
Into power?
No. I think Fianna Fáil will double their seats. The reason that we were wiped away in 2002 is that there was a whole pile of independents elected. Then in the next election they went from sixteen down to three or four. And I think the same will apply on this occasion if Fianna Fáil get their act together. And Fianna Fáil will get their act together. There’s always a great demand in this country for ideological politics and the centre-right against the centre-left and all the rest of it. But the Irish people have a funny way of deciding what they want. And we have two, well three, centralist parties really: Labour, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, and any of them can really be in government with each other.
There’s no essential difference between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
The difference is one of performance. I mean they drove the country into the mire that it’s in over 14 years. That’s the big difference. We didn’t do it.
But in the three elections over that period, you were all promising exactly the same things. In fact, Fine Gael were saying, “We’ll spend more!”
No. I think that’s kind of glib. The substance is far different.
Do you remember your party’s ‘Celtic Snail’ campaign?
Yeah (laughs). That wasn’t a very good idea. You know the way sometimes in politics when good ideas work out, everyone’s responsible, but when bad ideas go pear-shaped, we all run the other direction. But I wasn’t responsible for that.
What about a Fianna Fáil Fine Gael coalition?
I think Fianna Fáil are likely to come back after the beating they got the last time, but I don’t see them in government. I think it would be bad for the country if they were to be in government for the next 20 years – or even be let close to it. If you look at the recent Meath by-election – 70% of the people who voted in that voted for parties who were in favour of making these adjustments. Fianna Fáil is still in favour of making these adjustments. They claim they’ll do it in a better way, but nobody believes that.
Labour are likely to get wiped out...
I don’t think they will. One of the things that has really impressed me about the new Labour party is the number of young TDs who are really realistic about what has to be achieved by the country. People like Derek Nolan, Michael McNamara, Richard Humphries, John Lyons – they know what has to be done. And they’re not playing to the gallery as the independents constantly do. That’s why I think the independents will be wiped out. The crowd who couldn’t possibly vote Fine Gael or Labour the last time, it was easy [for them] to vote for Ming in Roscommon or Shane [Ross] in Dublin South and Mattie McGrath – because they’re really Fianna Fáil. They’ll go back to voting Fianna Fáil the next time and the independents will just fizzle out.
Do you have a bad temper?
I don’t think I do, actually.
You’ve come across a little testy on TV and radio a couple of times.
Oh, that was years ago, was it? (laughs)
No, it was quite recently.
I don’t think I have a temper. Too often, I think, when you go on [a show], journalists think you’re there to be sort of goaded and attacked. I’ll defend. I’ll go out and give as good as I get. And I enjoy the argy-bargy. I’ve no time for politicians who are all sweet as you like. I don’t believe in that. If I’ve a position I’ll defend it and let the public decide. The media’s job is to mediate the debate. Not to be the debate. Often I think elements of the Irish media want to be in there with us. Well, go off and get your five thousand votes, lads, and away you go! But unlike you, of course, they haven’t got the guts to put their name forward (Olaf ran unsuccessfully in the 1997 general election – Ed). I admire people who stand in elections, and I include the independents in that. I admire people who put their money where their mouths are. The people decide and the people chuck you out. That’s my view on political debate: I do go in hard because I expect hard questions to be put to me. But, equally, I think it’s right that if a poseur independent TD is looking good and sounding good and shifting around the place, why shouldn’t he be held accountable? Am I a child of a lesser God just because I happen to be a member of a political party? There’s this kind of arrogance attached to some elements of smaller parties and independents that they are morally superior. That’s a load of bullshit.
Do you think Mick Wallace should have stepped down when his messy tax affairs came to light?
Yeah. I think the people of Wexford see through all that now. It’s up to them to decide his fate. But I think if you go out there and you pretend to be something… That’s like the whole Luke thing. I mean, Luke Flanagan was completely exposed. If you go out there and say you’re a paragon of virtue and you’re pretending to be something you’re not, you’re going to be exposed – rightly so.
In your last Hot Press interview you said you’d like to be Taoiseach one day. Is that still your ambition?
I don’t think that will happen because I think Enda Kenny’s going to win the next election and he’s going to go on. And I can’t see Fine Gael winning a third term in office. Who’s to say, but I’m very confident Enda Kenny will win the next election, based on where we stand right now. So I don’t think the situation will arise.
Do you have a motto in life?
Never give up. Never, never, never. Churchill’s motto. Never, never, never give up.