Roche s Story

For a moment or so it seemed as though Adi Roche, the angel of Chernobyl , was about to take an unfettered flight right into Aras An Uachtarain. She certainly soared to the top of the first national opinion poll conducted after announcing her candidature. However, within one week, out stepped the snipers who rather unceremoniously halted her flight with a barrage of missives to the media claiming that Saint Adi was, in fact, a Stalinist. The accusations came from twelve ex-employees of the Chernoybl Children s Project, of which she was co-founder, and included claims that she was volatile and frequently insulting to her staff.
True or false, those accusations have cast a shadow over Roche s campaign, though this is something she seems now to be reluctant to address. Understandably, perhaps, given that media focus on the allegations was probably more extensive than was accorded to all her accomplishments during the preceding fifteen years. These include taking voluntary redundancy from Aer Lingus in 1982 in order to work full-time for the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament; devising a running Peace Education Class in 50 schools; representing Ireland on The Great Peace Journey and, in 1990, initiating the Chernobyl Children s Project. Since that time she also has become the first Irish woman to be elected to the Board of Directors of the International Peace Bureau which is a non-governmental organisation based in Geneva, has researched, developed and co-ordinated the first documentary in English on the effects of Chernobyl, Black Wind, White Land, and was voted European Woman Laureate and Irish Person of the Year in 1994.
Adi Roche was born in Clonmel, County Tipperary in 1955, grew up in a Fianna Fail household and is married to music and English teacher Sean Dunne. This interview took place in an upstairs room in a house once owned by James Joyce, in Bray, which is now the home of Democratic Left TD Liz McManus.

Joe Jackson: An easy question to kick off. Are you a Stalinist ? A recent Phoenix cover suggested that the Poles should be getting ready for an invasion if you re elected!
Adi Roche: Actually, it would be Belarus, if I was invading anywhere, because that s the country we work in! Anyone who really knows me could only smile at these accusations. First of all, Stalinist ? I haven t murdered anybody, I haven t executed anybody! But let s put this whole thing into perspective. The people we re talking about here number 12. And I do want to put this to bed. I very clearly said in the aftermath of those moans and I don t call them allegations that they were very personal to me. And, at the end of the day, everybody saw it for what it was, which is a lot of hot air.
I would imagine that to many people what matters most is whether there was any truth in those allegations of unfair treatment of staff.
As I say, I d rather leave the whole subject behind, actually. But one thing I would like to put on-the-record is that I never wanted to be called the angel of Chernoybl. That was never a title I chose for myself. I come to people as a whole person, the gifts as well as whatever else is part of my character. Nobody is perfect. And I m not expecting that I will be universally loved. The nature of my work is that certain decisions must be made and I stand by those decisions. So, now, as they, say let s move on. And even in relation to the subject of Chernoybl, I m not a single-issue person. My involvement has been everything, from the land mines issue, general disarmament, human rights and justice. That s actually what I m known for and I would hope we will discuss those things here today. The public side of my life has been the Chernobyl project but most people know me for the bigger picture, so let s discuss that.
Before we do, there are also those outside your organisation who are critical of your involvement in Children for Chernobyl. As in Professor Philip Walton who claims that the children with birth defects who appeared on The Late, Late Show, for example, are not representative of children of Chernobyl. He says the only observable health effects of Chernobyl are described as an increase in childhood thyroid cancer and many psychological problems due to fear and the major social disruption involved. In other words, he s accusing you of exploiting those children.
He s not a medical doctor. And I would always say that you should err on the side of the children. Doctors differ and patients die. And while, yes, you do have Professor Walton stating his position, you also have, on the other side, scientists saying that the accident we said would never happen, has happened. That s why the scientific community was left in total disarray after Chernobyl, because they believed their own lie. Science sometimes can have a very narrow focus and doesn t take into account the effect on human beings. And there has been such a silence around the nuclear industry, back as far as Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And we all know about the cover-up at Sellafield. The only people that lose out on all this are the citizens because radiation has a strange way of levelling everybody. That s the bigger issue. And there is medical evidence which strongly suggests that birth defects were an after-effect of Chernobyl. That s why I say doctors differ and children die. So let scientists have their own squabbles. I have made six documentaries on this subject, written a book on Chernobyl and done some serious research, talking with scientists and doctors and, at the end of it all would say go talk to the children themselves because we do too much talk around, and about, these children, but not to them.
Some people suspect that your commitment to the children of Chernobyl is partly compensation for the fact that you don t have children of your own. In fact, you made a conscious decision not to have children at least ten years earlier, around 1982, 83.
I did. And that decision was made around the time when there was a palpable fear of nuclear war. I remember seeing the film War Games and I said I couldn t, in conscience, bring a child into the world, when we were living under such a threat.
Since then why haven t you changed your mind. Or have you?
Oh gosh, there would have been loads of times when I would have reconsidered that decision. And this isn t to say I haven t been pregnant. I have been pregnant but I have been unable to hold on to any pregnancy. But when we made that documentary with Ali (Hewson. Black Wind, White Land Living With Chernoybl) in 1993 and decided to make other documentaries in the radiation zone I realised I courted it once too often.
What? Pregnancy or radiation?
Radiation. So I felt I couldn t, in conscience, even reconsider, because of the risk involved.
Surely you have yourself continually checked for levels of radiation?
I do, in fact I get myself checked in Belarus because we paid for the latest scientific development which, actually, is a chair you can sit in to get a body check.
But you still have decided not to have a child?
I know too much about radiation. It was a very educated decision I made, believe me.
Could you have been ill-effected by your many visits to radiation zones, in the sense that it was a factor in terms of your losing children during pregnancy?
In answer to the question I can only say that I trust fate. And I (fumbles), well, to be really honest with you, I always felt there was a higher presence we were serving. The truth of what we had to communicate, the pictures we had to make, on camera, were so important that, in a sense, I believed we were all going to be alright. And all the crews are alright, I believe. But there was another aspect to my not having children at the time, which is that I probably would have been up for child neglect, because I was never at home! So there was the question of where are my talents best channelled? And I felt there was so much to do in relation to this issue that I could make the choice not to have children. And yet it doesn t feel like a loss to me. I have so many children I am close to.
I read one incredibly moving news report which said that you and Sean were in the presence of one particular child who died in a Cork hospital and you pointed out that you didn t have to be that child s natural mother to feel every single, soul-based aspect of that experience.
Definitely. You don t need that physical umbilical chord. Not at all. And my sister is adopting one of those children, Alexi, and I m his godmother, so I have a lot of connections, at that level you mention, to these children.
Do you need that connection, on a constant basis?
I don t know about needing it, but I love it!
But wouldn t that point of connection be severed, to whatever degree, if you became President?
Who says I couldn t have visitors!
As in kiddie-days in Aras an Uachtarain?
Well, yes. And, believe me, I have looked at this very seriously. I definitely have particular interest in certain groups in Irish society. That s what I stated in the speech at the launch of my Presidential Campaign, when I referred back to the Proclamation of Independence which does urge us to cherish all the children of the nation equally. And why I said that upon election I would ask the leading non-Governmental children s agencies in Ireland to come together in a Commission to help me work out how we can carry out that spirit of the Proclamation and open the President s House to all the children of Ireland. I am very serious about this, I swear to God. I also am equally interested in people with disabilities, early school-leavers, people who are long-term unemployed. In fact, travelling around the country in the past month I ve made so many commitments to all these people that, if I become President, the first year is already booked out trying to catch up with commitments I ve made! And it is going to increase rather than decrease my contact with people.
I do have that thing about me, whereby I can draw people towards me and they trust me. I do genuinely love meeting people and, yes, even listening to them, to answer your earlier question! So all of this is terribly important to me, as I believe it should be to the President of Ireland. There has to be a warmth, an ability to communicate, a sense that people are comfortable with the President. And that out-going aspect to my nature has always been there, that need to connect with people. That s part of why I went to work for Aer Lingus all those years ago!
Perhaps it is, but, to use a terrible pun, you definitely moved onto a different plane when you met Petra Kelly and, I believe, a Native American woman named Wynona le Duke who connected you with your belief in earth spirituality .
(Laughs) That is a terrible pun! But it s true! And that was 20 years years ago. I distinctly remember going to Carnsore and meeting John Carrol, Petra Kelly and Wynona le Duke. But the two women, particularly, impressed me because they spoke straight from the heart. There wasn t any political-speak. It was about spirituality and the sacredness of the earth, the environment. That struck such a deep chord inside me. I had a deep spirituality as it was, but that was based more in my religious background. Having listened to Wynona and Petra it evolved into something altogether different. As in, the beliefs that still drive me today.
But, at one point, you were, you ve said, very religious in the more orthodox sense, and even considered becoming a nun.
I was. And I did go as far as considering becoming a nun. But my spirituality now isn t locked into any kind of Church ethos. It cross-pollinates, but all of that did unfold over the past twenty years. At this level, I was probably asleep, to a great degree, for the first 20 years of my life. Or, at least, restricted. I certainly felt a void but didn t realise that until I encountered the wisdom of other philosophies, as in meeting women like Petra Kelly and Wynona. And people like Bruce Kent, who was a monsignor at the time. There also were ex-Vietnam vets, people who worked in the Philippines, like Father Neil O Brien and people who worked in Africa, Nicaragua. All of that added to my spiritual awakening.
Adi, you could hardly be said to have sleep-walked through your teens, when you were mad about boys from 14 , incredibly athletic and taking part in public debates, dancing and so on.
God! Did I say I was mad about boys from that age? All those old quotes are coming back to haunt me! But, yes, I was very social, going to hops and to the cinema and all that. I also used to row, was an all-Ireland champion, very out-going. And although I didn t fit into the school system, academically, debating definitely was my forte. That helped bring out my natural creativity. Because, let s face it, I knew I wasn t going to be an Einstein or a rocket scientist! Or a brain surgeon!
Apart from being mad about boys was our would-be-President also a drinker and a bit of a druggie. After all, there was lots of dope smoked in Carnsore!
(Laughs) I have been known to sip the odd couple of vodkas on the Belarussian border in the middle of the night! In fact, they tell you, in Belarus, that drinking vodka kills radiation. Doctors told us that so we had to check it out! But, yes, I would be a social drinker! Though if there were drugs in Carnsore, I missed it! But then I was Miss Prim and Proper at the time, even though I do remember mushrooms down there!
As in magic mushrooms? Did you try them?
Gosh no! (laughs) But drugs is a serious issue, in relation to young people. And because I am identifying myself with young Ireland it is an issue I am deeply interested in. Indeed, I ve noted a lot of anger among young people, particularly those who were away working, trying to make funds for their college years, and didn t register for a postal vote by the 30th of September. Many feel they have been silenced and that makes me wonder about the motivation behind the Government s decision to stick the election in on that particular Thursday. I m gearing my whole vision for humanity on young people and what message is the Government giving them? You don t matter. All that adds to the despair among young people. And there is a huge number of suicides in this age bracket. And all of this does, to me, relate to drugs. If people feel disempowered they will turn to drugs.
Many young people say they turn to Ecstasy, in particular, to rise above the same kind of spiritual inertia that you say defined your own teens.
I understand that. I ve never taken an Ecstasy tablet so I m not going to moralise on this. But, yes, young people do talk to me about this tunnel of nothingness they feel they are travelling through and many do use Ecstasy in an attempt to get out of that. But I would love to draw them back from that and say there are other ways you can get to the same place and maintain, sustain it. And keep yourself revitalised as a whole human being, without that brokenness that drug-abuse creates.
The cynical view is that President Adi Roche would be a huggie-huggie President, hugging the world in the name of Ireland.
I see all that but none of it hurts me. Though I realise that we are a far less rich world if we are cynical about compassion. What I, Adi Roche, have, essentially, is a passion for life and I love to work at transforming that compassion for our fellow human beings into positive energy. And I honestly believe that we, the Irish, are defined by the same core characteristic, as a nation. Apart from all that, it s really far too easy to slag off things like compassion. I ve been hearing crap like that for 20 years. And let s face it, when U2 sing songs that are not cynical, but self-assertive and compassionate, the whole world embraces those songs. The same is true of people like Christy Moore and Brian Kennedy.
And Luka Bloom! Some people certainly responded cynically to that news-clip of you singing along with Luka!
Maybe they did but do I care? No. We ve even taken on board, as part of our campaign, that song You Couldn t Have Come At A Better Time. Partly because that comes back to the Carnsore thing too, my idea of how I, and my generation, has been 20 years a-growin . We were all part of that tide and our time has come. Luka, Christy, Julian Vignoles, Frank Connolly, a whole wealth of people that have ended up doing amazing things. That, too, is what I want to tap into.
But let s be a little more specific about what you would do with Aras An Uachtarain. Mary Robinson had open days where she welcomed marginalised groups such as travellers. Would you extend that concept and have, for example, a halting site in the grounds of Aras An Uachtarain?
I haven t actually thought of this so I d have to let the idea percolate through. Though, yes, I, as Adi Roche, would be open to that idea, but only, and with the agreement of the Government. And if they didn t agree I probably would come up with another idea that would be suitable because I have already told travelling people I am open to whatever they might have to say.
Some candidates are saying that their positions on these subjects, or subjects such as abortion, are not relevant to the role of President. Do you agree?
Those issues are not relevant to the job of the President but then nor are many of the issues you and I have been discussing today. Yet people do have a right to know where we all stand on these issues. May we fall or succeed on those issues. But the one thing I will say about myself, Joe, is that you will know exactly where I stand because I have no problems putting myself on the line. For example, I knew today, when somebody said Are you for or against divorce? that I would lose a vote in the answer I gave him, but I still said I am for divorce and I voted for it in the referendum. And he said, I m really sorry, I wanted to give you my vote.
So, where do you stand on abortion?
I am opposed to abortion.
But did you vote yes in the access to information vote?
That s a very personal question! I d rather not say.
Why?
God! This is like going to confession! Okay, I did vote for access to information. Is that okay, Joe? Bless me father, for I have sinned! (raises eyes to heaven) But, seriously, when it comes to the issue of abortion I realise that people have to make difficult decisions and if, as an issue, that came before the people and they made their decision, I would consult with the Council of State then make up my own mind as to whether it was to go into legislation or go to the Supreme Court. The role of President is not about shaping or guiding policy, it about implementing the power of the people. And anyone who sees it as otherwise is not being true to the oath we would be asked to take. Adi Roche, citizen, talking to you now, Joe Jackson, is giving you her personal opinion but all that ceases if I become President at the end of this month. The same applies if Mary McAleese has opinions, or Mary Banotti. Though, I don t know if their opinions have been flushed out. But, as I say, people know where Adi Roche, citizen stands on all these issues. That s where I differ from the other candidates. I can operate as an independent because I m not beholden to anybody. I don t have any party political allegiance.
Isn t that more than a little naive? Labour came to you in the first place because they were desperate to, I believe they said, continue with the momentum initiated by their choosing Mary Robinson in 1990.
They did say that about maintaining the momentum but I never saw this as an element of ego from the Labour Party. That s what really impressed me. They really are committed to the momentum of movement forward, outward, across the Irish sea and all that. They do want to build on the vibrancy, youth, newness of Ireland. It is a global vision they have. But they also know I demanded independence from the beginning, or I wouldn t have accepted the nomination.
Your track record shows that issues such as Ireland s neutrality, for example, are of central importance to you. But is there any level at which, even symbolically, you can retain your commitment to such an important issue as President of Ireland?
People know where I stand on this issue and know I have said that part of what Ireland brings to the European Union is its neutrality. And an effective President really can, I believe, reflect the willingness of our country to co-operate in peace-keeping efforts worldwide, while retaining the right to say no to war being waged in our name. That s part of my policy document. So my continuing commitment will come through on the level of identification. And if there is a referendum as to whether Ireland should go nuclear there is no way anybody is going to be unsure of where the President, as a citizen, would have stood on those issues.
But will not be able to say so, as President.
No.
So do you accept that the government can tell her to shut up on such issues, in the same way that they silenced Mary Robinson?
Yes.
But does that not pull against the very soul of Adi Roche, the person who was told to speak out on such issues by women like Wynona le Duke?
No. That will never, never happen, Joe. Because the ideas are out there. I m just one person. The project has all that philosophy and the schools have all I passed on, at this level. All that work is done. And there are lots of other people carrying on the flow. And those philosophies are not uniquely mine, they do go back to people like Wynona and Petra Kelly. Nobody has any ownership on ideas. So the Presidency, to me, is another extension of all that. And all the gains, for sure, would make up for what others might see as the losses. Because I am applying for this job, with a full understanding of the duties involved. I know this is going to change my life. I had to make a huge decision as to whether I was going to stay doing what I was doing or take this huge risk of putting myself on the line to become President of Ireland.
But there must have been a point at which your colleagues in Chernobyl Children s Project said we need you here, humanity would be better served if you stayed with CCP and didn t become President of Ireland?
CCP were involved in the negotiations for this. And, no, they haven t actually said that. But what I ve said to them is that the greatest tribute I could make to the directors, the workers and the thousands of families out there is to say You re more than capable of standing on your own two feet. Because no organisation or business is just one person.
Unless you re a Stalinist?
(Laughs) Well, there you go! Does that answer your earlier question? Or allegation ? The truth is that it was my faith in all the other people involved in CCP which meant I can take time out. The project has gone from strength to strength and is going forward and outward all the time. And, even since I ve been involved in the Presidential campaign they ve done the convoy by themselves, which is great news.
But the fact does remain that since those allegations entered the public domain you have slipped down in the opinion polls.
Let s get serious here! There was only one point between myself and Mary Banotti in the last poll! And the message I am picking up on the street does not match the polls. The truth, to me, comes from being out there on the highways and byways of Ireland meeting as many people as possible, not taking your reading on reality from a few opinion polls. n