Although he’s only been resident in the Mansion House since July, Cllr. Royston Brady has already caused more of a media stir than the last ten Lord Mayors of Dublin combined. Within a couple of weeks of taking office, the 31-year-old landed himself in trouble when he told Roisin Ingle of the Irish Times that he’d regularly frequented lap-dancing clubs when he lived in the USA. Despite repeated calls for him to apologise for this politically incorrect behaviour, he refused – pointing out that it was simply part of the culture over there.
In September, he had a very public row with Michael McDowell when McDowell refused to meet him to discuss Dublin’s street crime problem. Rather embarrassingly, this time he was forced to say sorry for having called the Justice Minister an “arrogant bully”. More recently, he’s been getting up Health Minister Michael Martin’s nose by publicly criticising the impending smoking ban.
In between that, he’s been photographed at what seems like every official function, reception and opening in the land (I first met him at this year’s Rose Of Tralee), appearing on everything from The Sunday Show to The Panel. As a smart and well-travelled Irish thirty-something, he’s obviously media-savvy enough to know how to play the fame game. And with only a year in mayoral chains, he’s clearly determined to make a serious impression.
Following a successful career in hotel management, he became the youngest sitting member of Dublin City Council when he won a seat in 1998, at the age of 26. He served as Deputy Mayor in 2000 and became Lord Mayor when he was elected on July 7 last.
The following interview took place in the Mansion House on the afternoon of October 27. Funnily enough, the politician he most reminded me of was Garrett FitzGerald – but only because his suit jacket and trousers were completely mismatched.
“Ah, Jasus, I don’t believe it!” he laughed, in his Dustin-esque Dublin accent, when I pointed this sartorial error out to him. “I’ve never been able to dress meself properly.”
Except for success…
OLAF TYARANSEN: How did a kid from inner city Dublin get a name like Royston?
ROYSTON BRADY: There were actually, believe it or not, nine of us in the family – five boys and four girls – and most of the names my dad picked were biblical names. Mine wasn’t. He was reading a book at the time about an orphan called Royston, who was living in London. I dunno what happened to the orphan, I never read the book (laughs). So I dunno what kind of thinking was behind it, but that’s where I got the name from. But the rest of them are biblical names. Do you want the run-down?
OT: Go on then…
RB: There were five boys – Cyprian, Fulton, Howard, Simon and Royston. And then the girls are Felicity, Perpetua, Ruth and Naomi.
OT: Cyprian is a politician too, isn’t he?
RB: He’s a senator. Cyprian is the eldest in the family. He runs the Taoiseach’s constituency office down Drumcondra, but he was nominated as one of the Taoiseach’s nominations there last year.
OT: Your father was one of Ireland’s first male models, wasn’t he?
RB: He was, believe it or not! You’ve done your research on that. I’ll tell ye, he modelled for Arnott’s. I actually have the picture that was in the paper of him and a woman modelling clothes for Arnott’s.
OT: He was a cab driver as well, wasn’t he?
RB: Yeah, he drove a taxi then after that. And he had an unfortunate incident. He… (pauses). The night before the bombs went off in Talbot Street down here – 1974 it was – he was taken up the mountains at gunpoint and they left him tied up there. He more or less had to beg for his life and explain to them that he had eight kids under the age of eleven. But they took the car off him, tied him up and left him up the mountains.
OT: Are you saying that your father’s car was used in the Dublin bombings?
RB: His car was used as one of the getaway cars. So unfortunately, after that incident, he couldn’t drive a taxi anymore because he lost his nerve, as such. Which one would if they had a gun stuck to the back of their neck. So a good few months after that he was still fairly shook, so he ended up selling the taxi plate and the car and stuff like that. He just lost his bottle to drive, I suppose.
OT: Would that have affected your own attitude towards the North?
RB: It would have, yeah. It was something that he never really went into it in any great detail about. He told us what happened. He told the story on a few occasions but otherwise he just didn’t really want to speak about it at all. He was a jack of all trades, he sang in a band. He used to do all the cabaret stuff in Murray’s of Lusk and all of these places. He did that for years. As kids we had a caravan down in Rush that we’d all be packed off to. So throughout the whole summer season, he used to do six nights a week down in Murray’s.
OT: Is that how he got involved with Fianna Fail? Showbands?
RB: Yeah, that was his connection really. He ended up getting involved with Bertie. Bertie was originally elected out in the Finglas area for the first time in ’77 – but he came into the inner city after that, and he met me dad one day in a pub down in Amiens Street. Now he would’ve known that me dad would’ve been known around the area, number one because he was from down around Sheriff Street area anyhow. And then he also would’ve had the band. And what they did was, a lot of the inner city people would go to Murray’s of Lusk – chicken and chips, you know one these do’s where they go on buses and stuff. So he would’ve been well enough known around town and that’s how he ended up getting involved with Bertie, doing a bit of canvassing and stuff like that.
OT: You joined Ogra Fianna Fail yourself when you were 11, didn’t you?
RB: Yeah, but I mean it was never really Fianna Fail as such, it was more Bertie Ahern. From the family point of view, it was more we’d go delivering leaflets for him. I was doing that since I was old enough to reach a letterbox – 11 or 12.
OT: Any memories from that activity?
RB: I remember years ago, when I would’ve been only 13 or 14, down on Amiens Street where Bertie used to do his clinics on a Saturday. And one day me dad said to me, ‘Do ye see that young fella in there?’ Bertie was only in his thirties at that stage and I remember me dad saying to me, ‘He’ll be Taoiseach some day’. And a lot of people said to me dad, ‘Jasuz yer mad – it’ll never happen!’ But obviously he could see something in him. Even the amount of work Bertie did in the inner city area, it was obvious he was going to go places.
OT: When was the last time you spoke to Bertie?
RB: The last time I spoke to him was about three days ago – in here. He was over here for a function inside, and we were talking out in the hall and then we came in here. Actually, it was Thursday morning. I see him regular enough.
OT: Did you go to his daughter’s wedding?
RB: No, I didn’t. I went to the Robbie Williams concert. So I got my priorities right… (laughs). I have to say I’m a big fan of Robbie Williams. I don’t like his attitude sometimes, but I have to say he’s a good performer. So the night the wedding was taking place, I was out in the Phoenix Park with 130,000 other people.
OT: Were you invited to the wedding?
RB: No. I’d know Georgina alright and stuff like that, but there was a number of people who went out from the group that would be down in Drumcondra, but… But I didn’t even talk to me brother about it, Cyprian. I know it was reported in the paper that we were both out at it, but we weren’t. Somebody got their wires crossed obviously. The whole thing in the paper was just… (shakes head). You know, I think it was summertime so they jumped on this and the whole thing got out of control. It was unfortunate because it was her wedding day as well.
OT: Though when you sell your wedding pictures to a celebrity magazine for a million quid, you’ve got to take what comes.
RB: Well, there you go. I suppose people say that. I’ve heard that been said as well. There was a huge amount of money tied to it, so where’s your cut-off point? I’m getting married at Christmas and actually they picked up on it fairly fast. They were asking me was I going to try to sell the photographs to anybody and I said, ‘Yes, the Northside News or the Northside People’. But I said that as a comment in an interview and the MD from the Northside People wrote in and sent me a cheque as a deposit. I’d said E1,000, so he sent me a deposit cheque for E100, and said he’d give me the balance when I sent in the photos. So in fairness, people pick up on these things – even off the cuff comments like that.
OT: You auditioned to join Boyzone, didn’t you?
RB: I didn’t. Michael Graham is a friend of mine. Now, I would’ve been in the Billie Barrie (dancing school) originally and we were friends for years, even outside of the dancing scene. So yeah, I was tap-dancing for a long time with him, but I was always too tall and I never got roles in anything.
OT: Do you still tap-dance?
RB: It’s been quite a long time now since I’ve done anything like that (laughs). But we knew each other before we even went into that, because my mam’s house is up in Coolock and his ma’s house is up there as well, so we would’ve lived relatively near each other. So he made a million out – millions probably – but no, I never really got a crack at the whole boy band thing.
OT: Some would say that you can make millions in politics just as easily.
RB: Well, there is that perception and there are individuals that have done so, alright, but it’s not entirely legal so… none of it is. And I don’t want to skip ahead, but I was reading yesterday about the likes of certain people – like G.V. Wright and others – and the evidence agains them in the Tribunal, and I was just saying to myself, ‘Where’s this gonna end?’ It’s just a drip-drip of these guys coming out and I just can’t understand it, I really can’t.
OT: What does a Lord Mayor actually do all day?
RB: It’s up to the individual really, how much they actually want to do. What I do is I come down in the morning – which is handy, all I have to do is just fall down the stairs here – and I’m in the office by 7.30 or 7.40. I like to get an hour or an hour-and-a-half head-start, because it gives you time to get paperwork and stuff ready. From the minute the morning starts, you can take on as many functions as you want. I’m doing, say, seven or eight a day now at the moment – some days anything up to ten. Anything from charity functions to city council functions to openings.
OT: Are you the youngest Lord Mayor of Dublin ever?
RB: I’m the second youngest. Sean Haughey was the youngest, so my argument there is I wasn’t as well connected as he was. Some say to me that I was connected to Bertie – but I wasn’t directly related to him (laughs). No, the way I look at it is, you know, I’m only a year at it and it would be fantastic if it was for two or three years. It should be directly elected, I don’t care what anybody says. Me own party say that it shouldn’t, but I say that it should and I’ve gone on public record saying that. It’s madness that it doesn’t happen, that we don’t actually just directly elect somebody.
OT: Do you have any direct powers?
RB: No (shakes head). The only way you could use it is through the media. I’ve noticed that. Like, yes, you would have influence on the city manager but you never really know how much influence you’re having. Is he only there trying to pacify you or is he actually taking you seriously? Now, in fairness, I get on well with John Fitzgerald and any suggestions I’ve made he’d be willing to take on board, but the officials would be cute enough to know that you’re only there for a year. So by the time you try and instigate anything… (shrugs). That brings me back to the whole McDowell incident during the summer, because I genuinely just got fed up to the back teeth that I was writing to him and nobody was responding. And I was saying to myself, ‘This is actually the way they treat it’. They just treat it with contempt.
OT: Did you get a phone call after that?
RB: I had contact with him after that. I was actually at a meeting with him.
OT: I presume your phone went red hot after you called him an ‘arrogant bully’, with Fianna Fail telling you to apologise…
RB: Oh, it would have. There’s no denying it. But my argument was, well, I tried to do it the right way. I wrote to the guy twice, I sought a meeting with him and he wasn’t willing to respond. People are telling me what the issues are, out on the streets and stuff. So it was a good thing to do.
OT: Do you regret apologising to him?
RB: Maybe it was a bad thing to apologise. But it’s not really my style to start slagging somebody off. Maybe it was a mistake to go right at the jugular at him, because I shouldn’t have personalised it so much. But I have to say, by doing what I did, it got the thing attention. A week later I had my meeting with him. We’ve another meeting in a couple of weeks time. We’re going through some issues.
OT: What are you trying to achieve?
RB: If I see some more guards down in the inner city of Dublin, it doesn’t make any difference how it happened – as long as it happened. And he stood on the steps of the Department of Justice to do a couple of radio interviews with me after, and he told the media that I raised the issue of policing in Dublin, and I raised a number of serious issues with him, and he’d take a look at them. The onus is on him now. I mean, I was only pointing out the obvious. He’s the Minister for Justice. That’s what he’s paid to do. That’s the bottom line with it! And that’s why I think the whole perception of politics is the way it is. I can understand why people just have no faith in it anymore.
OT: Well, look at the opinion polls just last weekend. The vast majority of the Irish population doesn’t appear to trust politicians…
RB: Well, they seem very far removed from what’s actually happening out there. And that’s not a good thing for democracy, it’s not a good thing for politics and it’s not a good thing for fellas like me either, who’re trying to make a career out of politics. Sometimes you say to yourself, ‘Jasus, I’d be probably better off out of this racket’.
OT: Should somebody like G.V Wright resign? He was drunk, he hit somebody in his car and he fled the scene. And now there’s new allegations of bribery. It’s almost like politicians close ranks to protect him.
RB: I’ve noticed that. And not only that, but it’s cross-party stuff. It seems to be the general consensus. Nobody’s raised their head above the parapet – and that’s the frightening thing about politics at the moment over here. You begin to wonder just how deep does the corruption aspect of it run?
OK, there’s politicians in there from all parties – even from me own – that can hold their hand up and say ‘I’m as clean as a whistle’, but I can’t understand why they’re not ousting the guys who they know are corrupt. Because look, there’s only 166 of them around there. Some of them are in there twenty or thirty years – and they know what’s going on. Any fella that stands up and says, ‘Oh, I didn’t know he was doing it’… You know, come off it, they’re in the council!
OT: But surely that would apply to Bertie Ahern as well. He must have known what was going on.
RB: Well, the way I look at it is, if it was happening in the council chamber that I’m in at the moment… I mean, I know things were done differently in the 80’s. Obviously, it must have been just blatant! Fellas were walking in with newspapers wrapped up with cash, and handing it into the council chamber or the bar next door. The thing that concerns me at the moment is that we have this perception that we’re gonna clean up politics and gonna do this, that and the other. But then, all of a sudden, no sooner has one case been put to bed then we’re looking at another one. And another one and another one, you know, and potential ones.
OT: Maybe we should just have an amnesty for political corruption!
RB: Let them come out with their hands up and say, ‘I took X amount – will you forgive me?’ (laughs). And purge their sins! I mean, I have to say. I think the style of politics in Ireland needs to change dramatically and I think over the next couple of years it will. If you look at some of the younger people in there, they’d be of the same mindset as me.
OT: Going back to your career before politics, you used to be in hotel management, didn’t you?
RB: I was, yeah. That’s me background. I ran the Royal Marine in Dun Laoghaire, that was the last job I had. But I was also working for Hilton Hotels in America. I always enjoyed hotel management. I was lucky enough to travel around. I worked for some fine hotels and had a great life in America.
OT: Did you ever encounter anything like a ‘roasting’ in a hotel you were managing, or any messy situations where celebrities were behaving badly?
RB: Em… I had one. I don’t know whether I should name him or not. And it was extremely sad. Out in the Royal Marine. Now, I’d seen it in America as well, but obviously they wouldn’t be as well known over here. American football – even college football. They’re nuts! They’re far out, those fellas. They live on a different planet to us ordinary mortals. But yeah, you’d see some serious binges going on and all this sorta stuff. But it seems to be more tolerated in America. I mean, the doorstaff or the concierge downstairs can organise things like prostitution and all that kinda stuff. You’d have all kinds of carry on.
OT: Who was the person causing trouble in the Royal Marine?
RB: It was Alex Higgins. He checked into the Royal Marine – with no bag, no nothing with him. He was totally off his head. And he was on a huge amount of tablets, because we found tablets in the room and stuff afterwards. But he basically did a runner. You know, he was ordering drinks to the room – he was on his own, like – totally sad stuff now, I have to say. I think he was two or three days with us. But we knew something was up because if you don’t bring bags into a hotel, this lad’s in trouble, you know. But he disappeared after a couple of days, ran off without paying the money, and I just said to myself… (shrugs). What do you do?
OT: Did you pursue him for the money?
RB: Nah. Somebody rang a few days later – an agent or a family member or something – but I don’t know whether they even paid. I didn’t pursue it in a big way. You could’ve, but I just said to myself, ‘Give the lad a break’. You don’t want him on the front of the Herald.
OT: Why did you leave the hotel business?
RB: I have to tell you, things could’ve been so different, because, okay, I always wanted to get into politics but I never thought I’d come back to do it so soon. And when I started living in the States and I was earning really good money and I was enjoying me life. You know, I had a great style of living. But it was only when me dad died that the whole thing went pear shaped.
OT: When did that happen?
RB: Me dad died just before Christmas ’96. He was only 60 and it just came out of the blue. I was only talking to him the night before on the phone. Bertie was having a massive Fianna Fail fundraiser in New York the following night. It was a black tie thing in one of the real swanky hotels and me dad was organising for me and a couple of me pals to gatecrash it, basically, and not pay a thousand dollars a plate. But to be able to get in and say hello and stuff like that. So that was the last call I had from him. He was organising tickets. All systems were go. I got a phone call the next day telling me that he was dead.
OT: I presume you didn’t go to the event…
RB: I didn’t go to the event. The tux that I’d hired was left hanging. It was the weirdest set-up, one of these twilight zone things. You were so far removed from the situation. So I came home. I was in the New York Hilton – there was 2040 bedrooms and it was like a factory – and I was only after getting promoted to the Assistant Room Service Manager’s job. And that was like $62 or $63,000 a year. And I was only 24 and, as I’ve said, you had a great standard of living in the States. But I didn’t even take up the position. I came back here for a month for the funeral. Went back (to the States) for Christmas, which was the worst move I ever made, because I started going on the sauce all the time and stuff like that. And I wasn’t going to work and I wasn’t turning up. I just couldn’t hack it, that’s just being honest with you.
OT: Were you particularly close to your dad?
RB: I was, yeah. So I just went through a bad patch after he died. I would’ve been one of these cynics, I suppose. You are when you’re younger – you give out about people complaining about depression and stuff. I have to say, it’s scary how easily you can fall into it. I wouldn’t talk to anybody – and I’d be the most talkative character you could meet! I was lucky that I had good friends around me over there. That’s one thing that’s always stood to me. I always met good people. So I moved into an apartment with these three Irish girls who I worked with. And they were really supportive and helpful. And I went through a bad time when I started drinking. I wouldn’t get up for work. Even when I wasn’t drinking, I couldn’t get up. I swear, it had never happened to me before.
OT:Darkness descends…
RB: Yeah, that’s what it was. I was living in Queens with those girls and I remember one day, I opened the curtains and I was lying in bed until 2 or 3 o’clock and it was like dark, dark – it was really scary. And I stood up – and I’d been out drinking the night before – and I said to myself if I don’t go home outta here I’m in big trouble. I’m in serious trouble. And I packed me stuff there and then, and I went down to the hotel. And in fairness, the guy who I worked for was more or less expecting it. He said, “I’m really glad you’re going home.” And most of me friends agreed it was the best thing. And when I came home, I was able to turn things around. Now, I was lucky. But I’d hate to be a person who slipped further, you know what I mean? I have to tell you, it’s frightening stuff. A bad experience. And I have to say, there’s the odd day when you kind of go on a bit of a downer again, and you start to…
OT: Do you think you were prone to depression before your father’s death?
RB: I dunno. I think I could’ve been. I don’t know where it comes from but, I have to say, I know a bit more about it now than I did a couple of years ago. So anyway, I came home in the summer of ’97. The election was over, Bertie was after being elected Taoiseach and I started working for the Royal Marine. I ran the hotel for two years and geared meself up for the local elections of ’99. So if things had of been different I would’ve stayed and lived in America, or I would only have been coming home now to get ready for next year’s election. But I’ve no regrets.
OT: Did you do any cocaine during your New York binge?
RB: No. It was something I never got into. Actually, I had an incident one time. Em… I lived in Amsterdam for a while, working in another hotel. I was only 18 or 19 and you know what that place is like (laughs). I was going to college just outside Brussels and they sent you on a Dutch placement and a French placement. So I was sent to Amsterdam and, of course, it was party central.
I used to work behind the bar in the hotel – and I thought it was a classy hotel – but at the end of a weekend you’d have all these English people leaving bags of grass and dope behind, because, of course, you can’t bring it home with you. And I worked with this guy. He was a coloured guy, a gas character, a barman – his name was Marvin. Of course, Marvin would collect up all of this stash and he’d be like, “Look what we have!” I didn’t really know that scene as such, I’d never really seen it over here.
But I have to tell you, I kind of fell out with him because one day… . (smiles). He was going out with another girl in the hotel and there was another guy. And I was living in the hotel for the eight weeks I was placed there. He asked me for my keycard and went up to the room. Of course, I genuinely gave it to him in good faith. But to cut a long story short, I went up to the room and they were all snorting gear and all kinds of stuff. So I just lost the head going, “Jesus – I’ll get put out of the hotel!” But it was something I’d certainly seen in America. I knew a few people who got involved in it.
OT: Have you ever even smoked a spliff?
RB: I would have when I was in Amsterdam, yeah. I would have.
OT: Do you think cannabis should be legalised?
RB: No… (sighs heavily). Well, you see, it’s a hard one to call really. It’s an issue that I don’t… Again, it’s probably a little like the time I was asked about the lap-dancing thing. Like, if somebody is sick or suffering from cancer or whatever the case may be, they should be given it. By Jesus, if I was dying of cancer I’d be smoking it! I can tell you that out straight! Or if I was terminally ill. If it relieves people in any way, for God’s sake, give it to them! When you look at the quantities we sell alcohol in and it drives people demented, because all they want to do is kill each other. Obviously it affects people in different ways, but I’ve never seen anybody on dope, or after smoking a joint, that wanted to burst ye or have a pop at ye or whatever.
OT: So why not legalise it then?
RB: You’ll always have the argument – is it a gateway drug? That’s where I’m not an expert. That’s the debate. And I talk to guys. I deal with them all the time. I set up a programme for kids – young fellas and girls coming off drugs – down in Merchant’s Quay. We teach them chef-ing skills and stuff like that. Now it depends on who you talk to. And I’ve seen it meself. Sixteen of us used to live in a house outside Brussels together. And I seen fellas who were able to take a smoke when we were in Amsterdam for a laugh – like meself – and who wouldn’t even think of touching it again. But then I seen the extreme where I seen a friend of mine who went on taking acid, taking E’s and he eventually ended up taking coke. So I think it affects people in different ways. It could be a gateway drug for some people.
OT: Having lived in Amsterdam, do you think prostitution should be legalised over here?
RB: Again, after I made those comments [about lapdancing clubs], I brought in a group that looks after prostitutes. They don’t preach to prostitutes or anything. They’re just there as a support mechanism for them. And I talked to the women when they came in to me, and they were upset about the comments I made, and I explained my position on it. But they were giving me some statistics about what goes on in Dublin and, I have to say, it’s just scary. They were telling me about one girl who, at Christmas-time, had like 34 or 35 customers before 5 o’clock in the evening on Christmas evening. Now, all those fellas have families. But they’re coming in on Christmas day to pay for sex. That’s just psycho stuff.
OT: Do you believe in God?
RB: Ah, yeah, I do definitely. There’s no doubt about it. I’m gonna get married and hopefully have a few kids or whatever. I’ve the height of admiration – and I know a lot of people disagree with me but I’ve talked to him on a one-to-one basis – for Cardinal O’Connell, who’s retiring now, who I think got a seriously bad rap by the media and RTE and stuff, when they made that programme. I mean, look, bringing it back to politics – did Ahern know that these fellas were taking money? How do you prove it? Do you go openly and accuse them? That’s what the cardinal was saying to me. And then he gets the rap for the whole thing by the media! To him, the thoughts of abuse wouldn’t even enter his psyche. Like, he was a lecturer and stuff.
OT: Surely he was moving the priests around because he knew they were abusing children.
RB: Well, as he said to me, what do you do with them? Then they’re landed back up at the Bishop’s palace. He has to live with them up there. He’s to put them in the house…
OT: Surely that’s a far better situation than exposing them to more children?
RB: Yeah, but then others will criticise that they shouldn’t be put back into a house up where he lives, or why is he protecting them? I’ve a good friend who’s a chaplain, Fergal MacDonagh, who has just finished being the head chaplain over all of the prisons. I used to serve mass with him and he’s gonna do me wedding, so we’re close enough. He’s a youngish kind of priest.
But he brought me up into Arbour Hill. And I was very apprehensive to go in there and talk to some of them, because obviously 95% of the inmates are in there for offences of a sexual nature. I have to say, when you go in – what is our answer to this problem? Because we’re not rehabilitating them! There’s no psychologist up there. I’m not for them or anything like that, but you’ve got to start looking at practical ways of dealing with them. And we don’t do that over here. We’ve 15,000 heroin addicts going around Dublin. I seen them there today. I saw two young lads not more than 100 yards from here, lying in a doorway around Molesworth St. Two young fellas – not more than 13 or 14 – in two sleeping bags. That was at twelve o’clock today.
Fianna Fail have been in power for almost 20 years and yet the problems of homelessness and drug abuse have actually worsened.
That’s a valid point. On and off, they’ve been in power. But that shouldn’t happen. And I have to tell you that that disturbs me greatly that that’s happening right on the doorstep of the Mansion House here. So we’ve certainly failed on some issues – there’s no doubt about it. But we’ve prospered economically and you can’t take that away either. I’d hate to be living in the Ireland or the Dublin of the ’80s that I remember from when I was 14 or 15. Because that’s why I ended up going to America. And when you look at those programmes like Reeling Back The Years and all, it’s like darkest communism. So the place was just a bleak place to live. So whereas we’ve made headway, we’ve failed on certain issues.
OT: Like drugs?
RB: Yeah. We still have fourteen-and-a-half thousand heroin addicts. There’s something wrong there. We were supposed to address that in the late ’80s, we were supposed to address it in the ’90s. This is 2003. You’ve a Minister for Drugs – who’s the Taoiseach’s brother – and he hasn’t done anything. That’s the bottom line. He hasn’t done anything. His office is on the Quays, in the Custom House; that’s where he’s based. If you look out from his office, you can see Pearse Street, which is where a lot of drug activity happens. They’re openly selling methadone on Butt Bridge. I pass them every day. His office is right there. You can’t have that.
We’ve failed those people – I agree with you 100%. I have no problem saying it. And any of them that come out and say we didn’t. I mean, that’s laughable. If we treat these addicts and get them off the streets, we make the streets safer. Do you understand what I mean? Last week’s statistics – 81 grand to keep them in prison. There you go, I rest me case. It would cost a fraction of that to rehabilitate them. But, yeah, we’ve failed miserably in those regards.
OT: Do you support the smoking ban?
RB: Smoking ban, smoking ban, smoking ban (sighs). Yeah, I’ve been a bit vocal on that as well. I’m not popular again (laughs). No, I agree that the Minister has gone the wrong way about it. Michael Martin’s gone to America, which is just crazy stuff, because what’s he doing in New York? I moved to New York in ’94. It’s now nearly 2004 – it’s taken nearly ten years to bring in the smoking ban. They’re trying since ’93 or ’94 in New York, and it’s only really getting there now. Eighty-five per cent of Dublin people socialise, like you and I, on a Saturday in a bar and I’d even take a cigarette. Cigarette smokers even go up at the weekend, because people just wannt to have a cigarette with their pint. They mightn’t even smoke for the rest of the week. Now only 25% of New Yorkers socialise in bars, and they’re having problems economically. Even from the most practical thing of like – you’ve ten or eleven nightclubs in Temple Bar. They all hold an average of five or six hundred people each. With thousands of people shifting in and out of nightclubs to have a smoke, how do you even monitor that from a practical point of view? And then the Taoiseach was on the Dunphy Show on Friday and he said he wouldn’t call a cop if he saw somebody smoking in a pub. So where do you leave it? It amazes me that they’re trying to drive this and yet then they’re saying, ‘No, don’t call the cops because the cops aren’t actually responsible for enforcing it’.
OT: Do you think we’re becoming too puritanical as a society?
RB: I wonder are we doing all these things to take the spotlight off other issues? That’s my argument.
OT: Will comments like that not cause you a load of shit with Fianna Fail?
RB: They would, but sure they know I’m gonna say it the way it is. And as I’ve said, if I last in the party, I last in the party. If I don’t, I don’t. I love politics, I stand for something, but I certainly don’t want to be in a party where I can’t stand up and say what I believe in.
OT: I asked you earlier and you didn’t answer – should G.V. Wright resign?
RB: If he’s guilty, yes. But he hasn’t pleaded guilty to taking the money.
OT: What about running the nurse over?
RB: Well, I’d be afraid to comment on that because it could happen to me – and I mightn’t have had a drink. That could’ve happened to anybody. Okay, now, number one, fleeing the scene of the crime… Then again, you could make the argument… Like, I’m not gonna defend him, there’s no way… But what if I panicked and I left? I always say to myself, I always wanna be careful of being critical of others. What if the shoe was on the other foot and it was you or I even? What I’m saying to you about Fianna Fail people in general is that these things don’t just happen. You hear these things and most of them can be substantiated about who took money and who didn’t take money. My argument is there should be a raft of them gone if anything that’s hanging over them is proved.
OT: Should Charlie Haughey be prosecuted?
RB: I think they tried that. Realistically, they tried that. Is it gonna achieve anything? I think we should be frying other fish. I read some of those comments about the likes of Denis O’Brien and these people. I mean, all of those people are wealthy, wealthy people. He has a private jet and he has this and he has that. He doesn’t even pay tax in this country. And he made every penny he has on the back of here.
I mean, I saw them there the other night at the Chamber of Commerce dinner. He’s sitting across from me. Mary Harney’s sitting beside me and stuff. You just say to yourself… does nobody have the guts to stand up and say what needs to be said? From a legal point of view, these guys are able to keep themselves out of trouble. That’s the bottom line. Because if you’ve got a massive amount of money, you can tie the courts up. It’s like the Larry Goodman thing a few years ago.
OT: Do you have a motto in life?
RB: Yeah. Something me dad used to always say to me. You’re either a solution or you’re a problem.