A few days after being grilled by Hot Press, Mary Hanafin mentioned to Fianna Fáil’s General Secretary, Seán Dorgan, that she’d done an interview with this magazine. “He looked at me and he said, ‘I hope you used a few expletives’. And I said, ‘Only about you and Micheál Martin,’” she says, laughing.

The powers-that-be within the party will be relieved to find out, reading this interview, that Mary was only winding him up. There’s no mud flung here at her party leader.

But the former deputy leader of Fianna Fáil certainly isn’t afraid to stray from the party line on a plethora of issues, during the course of this lengthy exchange with Hot Press.