The new issue of Hot Press, out this Thursday with Bressie on the cover, features a highly revealing interview with Sinn Féin’s Jonathan O’Brien.

In it, the Cork North Central TD says that despite the party’s recent disappointing election performances, he still has every faith in Mary Lou McDonald as leader.

“If anyone looked at her performance before she became leader of the party, they’d say she was one of the most effective performers within Leinster House. You don’t just lose that overnight. The media needs to realise this: when they attack us politically, it just makes us more determined.”

Asked whether Sinn Féin’s attempts to shrug off past connections to criminality were damaged by McDonald describing Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy as “a very fine man” before the last general election, O’Brien reflects:
“I don’t know Slab Murphy but I’ve heard he is a very nice man. Maybe Mary Lou does know Slab Murphy and her opinion is he’s a very nice man.

“People said that if we got rid of Gerry (Adams) that connection would be severed. Gerry is gone. Now people are saying, ‘Oh, we need to get rid of Mary Lou’ or ‘We need Mary Lou to come out and say something that severs that connection.’ I think it’s just ridiculous.”

Although putting it on record that he’s never taken any illegal substance himself, cannabis included, O’Brien comes out firmly in favour of Ireland going the same drug decriminalisation route as Portugal.
“A young guy smoking a joint suddenly has a criminal record following him around for the rest of his life. It doesn’t benefit him, it doesn’t benefit society. It’s a waste of Garda resources. I think decriminalisation is probably closer than it’s ever been before.”

Having watched his own brother descend into homelessness and heroin addiction, O’Brien calls on the Department of Health to include Cork in the medically supervised injecting facility pilot scheme.
“When the legislation was going through, one of my objections was that the pilot scheme was limited to just the one centre in Dublin,” he states. “I’m very much in favour of having one in Cork. When Merchant’s Quay does open, it’ll be 18 months before the Department of Health even considers Cork having its own safe injecting centre – which is ridiculous. They’re ready to open more or less straight away.”

O’Brien also gives us the inside story of playing alongside Roy Keane for six years at Rockmount.

“You could see there was something special about Roy,” he recalls. “He was a very, very small kid. Not like he is now… Off the pitch he was a very quiet character, but on it he was just a natural leader.

“I remember some of the bollockings he gave me!”

O’Brien also give us his thoughts on dissident Republicanism in wake of Lyra McKee’s murder; abortion clinic exclusion zones; going into coalition with Fianna Fail; separation of church and state; the latest civil rights battles in the North; and lots, lots more.