We’re almost at the end of what has been one of the most personal and forthright interviews in the classic Hot Press tradition. And Joan Collins needs a breather.

Well, of a sort! Sitting only a stone’s throw away from Richmond Park in her modest home in Inchicore, she sucks again on her vape, and exhales deeply, before she gives yet another considered answer.

“Yeah, I’m off the smokes now a good few years, so I have to depend on that,” she explains, almost apologetically, pointing to her electronic vape.

The Dublin South-Central TD has a well deserved reputation as a political activist, but there is surprisingly little online about her back story. Even more strangely, since being elected to the Dáil in 2011, there’s never been a major in-depth print interview with her.

But all that’s about to change – dramatically! Here, the affable 63-year-old – she was born 4 June 1961 – pulls no punches. So, let’s sit back and listen to what she has to say. You’re in a for quite a trip – pun intended.

Jason O’Toole: Did you have a happy childhood?

Joan Collins: Yeah, it would have been quite a happy childhood. I lived around the corner from the Stardust. I had four brothers, five originally: my eldest brother died when he was two, before I was born. My dad worked in Guinness’s and my mam was a ‘stay at home mum’. I was very much a tomboy. I remember jumping off trees down in ‘The Jungle’, as we used to call it, at the back of the petrol station on the Malahide Road. We’d get the wood shavings from the wood factory to put underneath us.

Did the Stardust fire have a big impact on you growing up?

It did. The Stardust fire had a big impact on the whole area. One of my brothers was in the fire. He was very lucky. He got out of the fire doors. It was blocked initially and the barman managed to get it open and they flooded out. It was just horrendous. I would have been in that place a lot when I was younger.

Sounds like you were lucky not to be there…

I don’t know why I wasn’t there that night. It was so popular for teenagers our age. I mean, I was, what, 19? But that’s what you’d have in your head all the time: ‘I could have been there’.

Did you know anybody who died?

I knew friends who died in the fire. I named the young lad across the road, Paul Wade, who died in the fire when I spoke in the Dáil. Lovely young lad. His brothers were in the Stardust that night as well. It devastated the family. And particularly when they said the fire could have been caused deliberately – pointing the finger back at the community, saying that our community is responsible for it. It was a disgusting thing that came out of that original tribunal. Because it definitely hung over the community for a long time. It became a long, drawn-out legal battle. It was absolutely shocking that the Butterly family got the compensation, whereas the people who suffered from it, from their children dying in it, and those kids that never came home, were just left to go to court and plead their case. That’s why the recent verdict of unlawful killing was so important.

Did you finish secondary school?

I did my Leaving Cert, that’s as far as I went. We were the first generation really, where we had the opportunity to do our Leaving Cert. The rest of it was an education of life.

Did you ever think about emigrating? In the 1980s, Gay Byrne said in his Hot Press interview that there was no hope for young people in this country.

Yeah, I was seriously thinking about emigrating to Australia. I was on a small career break in the ’80s and I went to Australia and a few other places. I came home and I threatened then I was going to go back to Australia. Instead, I got active in politics.

Growing up, who was your teenage crush?

David Soul and T-Rex. The Bay City Rollers were there or thereabouts, because they were so popular at the time.

How old were you when you lost your virginity?

I was about 20-21. That’d be considered quite late in these days and ages, wouldn’t it?

Was that out of your fear of pregnancy?

Yeah, it was always on my mind because I wanted to travel. The biggest fear was getting pregnant and what that would mean to your life. A few of my friends would have gotten pregnant and they were ostracised to a certain degree, hidden away. I probably would have known a girl that had an abortion, but I wouldn’t have known anybody directly that had an abortion – or they never told us anyway. That just wasn’t spoken about.

What about contraception?

Actually, with my first wage packet, I went down to the Well Woman Centre just off Parnell Street and got the pill. I think from my generation onwards, we were much more liberated from that point of view.

What do you make of the Government Chief Whip, Hildegarde Naughton, recently saying women’s menstruation was “the real national conversation that we need to have”?

I don’t think it’s a pressing issue. It is an issue for women. There should deffo be free sanitary towels in all public spaces. But the other issue would probably be menopause. I think it should be just more openly spoken about, rather than hidden, the way it used to be. When I was a kid growing up, it [sex] was all hush-hush. You couldn’t really talk about it. You’d talk about it in the streets with your friends. It should be much more open from the health point of view.

Do you have any children?

I spent too long avoiding them – then it was too late. Is that something you regret? I remember getting into my fifties, I was saying, should I or shouldn’t I? At that stage I was just too old. Having a young kid at 50, in your late 40s, It just isn’t good. But no, I don’t regret it. I’ve got plenty of nephews and nieces and grandnephews and grandnieces.

Did you ever get married?

No, I never got married. I’ve been living with my partner since 1988/’89.

You didn’t strike me as the sort to do the religious thing of walking down the aisle in a white dress.

Well, I was never religious from a very young age. I used to go down to St Paul’s [Artane Football Club] for the dances when I was 16-17. Our generation of kids would have gone to mass and you’d have gone to confession. You used to go in and make up sins to go to confession. No wonder we were a country of mixed up people! But I remember going to confession in the church in Marino and I told him that I kissed a boy and he absolutely went for me. He literally had a real go at me, and ‘how disgraceful’ I was. So, I never went to confession after that. That was it. I broke my ties to the Church. To have a man dominate me like that – I was not going to put up with it.

Are you an atheist?

Yeah.

What makes you so sure there isn’t a God?

I just think it’s all made up. The Bible’s made up. And if there is a God and a pair of [pearly white] gates, I’m sure he won’t throw me away. I haven’t been that bad a person all my life. My own feeling is that there isn’t a God.

What happens when you die?

I just think it [the body] just deteriorates. But I’ll certainly be getting cremated. But our memory lives on. I remember my granny, I wouldn’t remember her grandmother or her great-grandmother, but the memories are carried on from generation to generation.

Should the Angelus be scrapped?

I think it should be scrapped.

And should the Dáil prayer be scrapped?

Yes, it’s an absolute joke. You know, when you hear what comes out of their mouths, you don’t know why they say prayers at all. If there was a God, they’d be struck down!

Should we legalise sex work?

Yeah, I agree with that. I support the sex workers setting up their own organisation, their union. I think they should be legalised to protect the women, because they’ve been driven underground and the legislation (making the purchase of sex illegal) is making them more vulnerable to exploitation. So, I do think it should be legalised. You’d have to ask the question: why are women put in a situation where the only option is to make money through sex? They shouldn’t be forced into it, but if women are in that situation they should have legal protection.

A huge number of people now think that porn is fine.

No, I think porn is dangerous. I remember when I was younger, you’d have to change the bedclothes once a week and I used to always find magazines underneath the beds of some of my brothers. I know young people have inquisitive minds. We all do when we’re young. And you’re searching for things. But I think porn is dangerous for children’s minds. It can have a serious impact on how people view women or men.

What’s your stance on euthanasia?

I would support it. But, again, I think there has to be strong legislation to be very strong protections, so that it’s not being forced (on people) by family, which does happen.

You’re of the era when drugs were first more readily available on the Dublin scene.

I would have had hash and stuff.

Did you try anything else apart from marijuana?

In my 20s, I went over to see a friend in London and I took something at a big party and I don’t know what the hell it was, but I never took drugs after that again because I got such a fright. It was a very bad trip. I wanted to jump out a window! And when I came out of that, I said, ‘No, never again’. It scared the living daylights out of me.

But did you ever smoke marijuana again after that?

I’d have smoked hash, on and off, yeah. Recreational, you’re with friends and they’d pass it around and you’d have some. It wasn’t a big deal. I used to buy a small amount, but not much. I haven’t touched hash for a long time. When I became more political, you realise where it’s coming from with the criminal gangs involved and you say, ‘Well...’ (shrugs).

What do you think about legalising marijuana?

Yeah, I would adopt the position that we should legalise. Well, not legalise it necessarily, but certainly decriminalise it. I would listen to the arguments about legalising it. I know that some of the people in the drugs and alcohol communities would support it, so I’d listen to their arguments. Looking at the Portuguese Model, it seems to be working, but it’s not perfect.

It’s ridiculous that anybody should go to prison or even court for snorting a line of coke or smoking a joint.

Yeah, it is ridiculous. You know, whether it should be legally sold, I think that’s another big question. Who profits off that?

Well, it should be the State, right?

Yeah, I’ve often discussed that the State should actually produce it [marijuana] and sell it and then use the profits to put into communities, into rehabilitation and all that type of stuff, into the prisons to try and get people off [drugs] in the longer run. I mean, there’s some people who’ve been smoking all their lives, like they’re living with it every day [and they’re fine].

They legalised marijuana in parts of the US, where it is now much better quality and safer than the subpar, dangerously unregulated substances available here.

That would be a strong argument for it. Absolutely. And if people knew they were getting safe cannabis rather than dirty cannabis or dirty drugs… but then, I think there’ll always be a market for illegal drugs. It’s a hard one. Like alcohol, for God’s sake. It’s one of the most popular drugs going around. Big companies make big money out of it.

You worked in the post office until you were elected to the Dáil in 2011. Were you ever robbed at gunpoint?

Yeah, I used to work at the counter in the GPO and I got done – got robbed – two or three times. It was quite shocking. Do you remember the GPO? It had the low counters. He just came over the top – and I just ran.

I’d imagine you’d need a few stiff drinks after that!

I was back to work the following day. At that time, they didn’t even give you time off after an incident like that. Robberies would have been quite regular with The Monk and all that. They used to do quite a lot of post office robberies. But yeah, the union, the CWU, then campaigned to get three or four days off, to go to the counsellor, GP, wherever, you know. But yeah, not nice.

Did you suffer from PTSD as a result?

Well, I’ve always remembered it. You know, you mention it there and it just comes straight back into my mind again what happened – and you’d be a bit anxious about it. But no, it didn’t have a lasting effect on me.

You first hit the headlines when you unleashed a torrent of abuse at Bertie Ahern on his last day as Taoiseach outside the Dáil prior to the 2011 general election. In hindsight, having been a TD, do you regret that?

No, I don’t. He was standing outside the Dáil gates and talking about his Bertie Bowl and all of his achievements. And that day was the first wage packet of many people, after they brought in the USC. That was the first time people were seeing that more tax had been taken out of their pockets because of the austerity. We were having a protest at the Dáil and he came out and started talking about all his achievements. And so I just said, ‘No, I just can’t take that’. And I challenged him.

You’ve been challenged yourself on occasion…

I don’t mind people challenging me. If anybody wants to have a go at me, that’s fair enough. I’m a public figure. But what I don’t want is, the situation of having people [protesting] outside homes. I’m a protester all my life. I’m a left winger. I’ve protested lots of issues and advocated for loads of issues, but I never went to someone’s home.

Should Bertie be allowed to run in the next Presidential election?

I think he should never be allowed near politics again.

Former government minister Joan Bruton said in her Hot Press Interview that she was very upset about being trapped in her car for three hours by water protestors during the Jobstown protest.

The Labour Party with Alan Kelly was bringing in legislation in relation to Irish water, setting up the privatisation of our water. You had a huge amount of people hear that she was down there. They went down to peacefully protest. The situation got out of control very quickly. And I think they tried to deal with it as best they could. They tried to organise people, in a sense, to march them out of the area. People were very angry. I wouldn’t be castigating them in relation to it.

Surely, it’s not right to terrorise anybody during a protest, is it?

I would agree with that. It wouldn’t have been a nice place to be. No one would want to find themselves in that situation. Certainly, I wouldn’t have liked to have found myself in that situation. But I’ll always defend people’s right to protest peacefully.

In 2015, you made international headlines when your namesake, actress Joan Collins did a tweet to clarify, tongue-in-cheek, that she was not the same Joan Collins arrested at a water protest in Dublin.

That’s when I was arrested down at Parnell Road. Yeah, she was very quick off the mark.

There were tweet exchanges and she gave you both barrels when you wrongly claimed she had an OBE.

Yeah. It was just a storm in a teacup. It was just one of those things that happens from events, you know. I replied that I’d never wear shoulder pads!

What was it like being in a police cell?

I was taken in to get details taken off me and put into a room, and that’s essentially what it was. No big deal. I’d say I was treated a bit better than other people taken into police cells.

Was that the only time you were ever arrested?

In my twenties, I was arrested in Greece when I was drinking with this English girl. We went down to a café where there was nightlife going on. I went to the bathroom and when I came back out someone had tried to rob her necklace. She had mentions of her mother on it. And they pulled it off her neck. And she picked up a bottle and threw it at them and it went through the window of the café.

Bad shot!

The police were called. The policeman was driving us down the harbour. He got out of the car and told us to get out. It was scary. You know yourself, you have this warning sign going off in your head. We got quite nervous and started shouting and beeping the horn. So, they brought us back to the police station and we were put into a cell. I was in it about five hours, I’d say. A lovely Greek man, who’d seen the incident, came up to the police station and paid our bail. So, I obviously had to give that money back to him.

Did you get a criminal conviction for that?

No, no.

What do you make of Conor McGregor who is from your constituency?

I’d prefer not to say anything about that man!

Do you think some certain politicians in the main parties look down at working class independents TDs?

Oh yeah, deffo. Particularly when we first went in – this idea of having to wear your shirt and tie, remember that? Mick Wallace did his own thing. It was the suits that caused the problems in this country, financially. Not ordinary people wearing pink T-shirts. Yeah, I’m not too fond of the atmosphere, but then the ushers are great. They make it more like a working environment. But the Dáil is a different place. It’s definitely a place of privilege, you know. You’d be very aware of your class. And I’d be very conscious about representing my class and advocating for the working class.

Are you concerned about the rise of the far right in Ireland?

Absolutely, yeah.

Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill recently told Hot Press she fears it’s only a matter of time before a politician is seriously injured or even killed.

Yeah, I wouldn’t rule it out. It’s a loud minority – the dog-whistling bit in relation to immigrants getting homes when our own can’t get houses, I mean, there’s so many lies going around, but people are so angry at the moment. And, you know, it seems to be catching on in working-class communities.

One line you hear is that refugees are catered for much better than Irish homeless. Is that just xenophobic?

It’s dog-whistling by the far right. They’re very well organised. I was reading an article there on algorithms on social media: nearly 58% (of the traffic) was from America, so all that’s feeding into it. It’s only something like 28% of it was Irish content. I’m just trying to get it out there as much as possible. I live in Ring Street in Inchicore, a working class area. Very proud and great neighbours and that. But we recently had families moving into a place on Tyrconnell Road, who are IPAS, international protection. The far right were trying to move in quickly on it and saying that they were all men going in, just throwing out lies. So, we had to explain what was going on. I was very upfront with people about it.

Do you think there’s much racism in Irish society?

Yeah, there is some. But, again, I think it’s been whipped up. It’s a small minority. I think most people in Ireland are very accommodating. They want to see people protected. They don’t like seeing people getting hurt. They’re human. They’re supportive. I mean, what I can’t abide – it just sickens me to the stomach – is when you see a group of people walking through a community like Drimnagh or Crumlin shouting, ‘Get them out, send them home’. That frightens the life out of people. What would you as a Black person or an Asian person or a Chinese person feel about that coming down your road? I think that’s absolutely disgusting.

Housing is a big issue.

Where I live, there’s young men and young women on the housing list ten, twelve, fifteen years. And people who went on the housing list when they hadn’t got any children, probably pregnant, and now their kids are sixteen, seventeen or eighteen and they need a three-bedroom apartment or flat. We’re not building three-bedroom apartments or flats at the moment. And those people are gonna be stuck on that waiting list. You can see where the anger is coming from.

Have you ever received any death threats?

No death threats, but strong content in some emails and on social media. I am much more wary now of going around than I would have been before, let’s put it that way. I’m watching me back even during the day – I used to only do that at night. But, yeah, I’ve been much more wary, much more conscious of my space around me.

Did you feel the need to report any of those messages to the guards?

No. They’d be saying that ‘You’re earning so much money and you’re getting money for this, that, for your clothes’. But some of them were just quite nasty, yeah.

You were booted out of the Labour Party under Dick Spring. Things didn’t end well either when you were in the Socialist Party.

There was internal things happening within the Socialist Party around the time of the bin charges. At the time out in Blanchardstown, the Council stopped collecting bins. People protested around the trucks and tried to get them to take the bins. We were told in my area that we should do the same thing: get people out in the streets, block the trucks, whatever. It may sound silly, but it is a political view of ‘we know better than ordinary people, so you tell them what to do’. I was told, ‘You tell them to start blocking trucks’. People would have got arrested, when there was no need because they were still collecting the bins in Dublin City Council. It was that diktat that was coming down.

You briefly started a party with Clare Daly. Where did it all go wrong?

We said we would register the party, but Clare went a different direction with Mick Wallace. And Clare’s position now is that you can’t operate in a party structure. I have different opinions. I think you have to be in a party so that a check is kept on you in relation to what you stand for. I’m still very fond of Clare. We go back a long time. She was in the Socialist Party as well. We were all kicked out of the Labour Party. There was about eight of us. Clare was one of them. She’s a very hard-working person. When she gets stuck into something, she’s like a dog with a bone.

Would you go into coalition with Sinn Féin?

First of all, if I got re-elected and a situation came up like that, I’d have to call a public meeting with my supporters and discuss that with them and see what they’re [Sinn Féin] offering. Have they got a housing policy that you can actually support? Have they got a health policy you can support? There would be questions you’d have to ask. I wouldn’t rule it out. I wouldn’t rule it in.

But what about the party’s past direct association with the brutal murderous campaign carried out by the Provisional IRA?

Yeah, that’s one of the reasons why I’d be a bit reluctant. I never voted Sinn Féin in my life. I was opposed, obviously, to the British position on the North. But I never supported the bombing of innocent people.

Should the likes of Martin Ferris and Dessie Ellis even be allowed to become TDs, considering they were convicted terrorists?

Well, I would have known people who would have done a crime and they do their time and they come out. And I think people have to be given a second chance. With that particular period in Irish history, I’d say if I’d been born in Belfast, I probably would have joined the IRA. Or possibly. I’d hope I would have found a socialist alternative. But you can see why people joined: they were oppressed. They were getting killed. And people are going to fight back. But I think when people stand up and say, ‘Well, that was the past. I’m willing to try and work politically here and bring change from the political point of view’, I think they should be given a chance.

Should the Russian and Israeli ambassadors be expelled?

I know there’s the argument that you’re better off having them on this side rather than expelling them and cutting off all ties. But what’s happening with Israel, it’s just absolutely war crimes going on. It’s genocide. They should be expelled, yeah.

What would you say to the accusation made by the Israeli government and their diplomats in Ireland that calling it genocide makes you anti-Semitic?

There’s plenty of Jewish people who call it genocide as well. Netanyahu is just protecting his own skin. He has an agenda. They want to take over the settlements. They want to put settlers into Gaza. You can criticise Israel politically – it doesn’t mean you’re anti-Semitic.

What about the argument that we are dependent on the US and the EU for protection– and that Ireland’s neutrality is a fig leaf that makes no sense?

Continuously, the Irish people have said they want to keep neutrality. I know it’s been nicked away at, these last number of decades. It’s important that we keep the triple lock. It’s important as a nation that we’re not seen as being part of any army or as part of an EU [military] group. It’s a natural thing that people want to keep their neutrality – they want to be seen as being able to be an honest broker in international situations. You can only intervene if you’re not seen to be an aggressor.

When was the last time you cried?

At the [Stardust] inquest. I cry regularly. I’m a dog lover, I’m an animal lover, so when I’m looking through the phone and you see some [sad] stories, yeah, I do, I cry.

What’s your motto in life?

It sort of comes from the old Bible: Do unto others what you do unto yourself. Never hurt anybody. And always respect people.

Finally, it wouldn’t be a proper Hot Press Interview if I didn’t ask what type of music do you like.

We would have read Hot Press growing up. My brothers got it. We’d have been into the music scene. After Stardust, I would have socialized at Mangos, The Lantern Rooms and The Silver Swan. There are a few of my favourite musicians: Annie Lennox of Eurythmics, Joan Armatrading, Janis Ian, T Rex, David Bowie, David Byrne and Talking Heads, The Moody Blues, The Doors, The Kinks, Christy Moore, Chrissie Hynde, Phil Lynott and Thin Lizzy. I love blues music: Billy Holiday, BB King, Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters and Etta James. And some punk. I even like some opera. What’s that saying? It ain’t over until…

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