The Full Hot Press Interview with Labour's Alan Kelly

Culture
29 Aug 17

As a member of cabinet during the last government, Labour TD and ex-environment minister Alan Kelly was involved in some hugely controversial policy decisions, not least the imposition of water charges. However, he remains unrepentant on that issue and strongly defends his party’s record in office. In a hugely revealing interview, he also talks about the death threats he received while a minister, highlights Labour’s role in the marriage equality referendum, gives his views on the Jobstown controversy, and discusses his love of Irish rock bands

If everybody knows, as Leonard Cohen sang, the dice is loaded, it’s equally fair to assume everybody also knows that Alan Kelly is your stereotypical political animal. He eats, sleeps and breathes all that shit. We’re talking about a guy who went to his first Labour Party conference as a young pup and still carried on to study politics at university.

So, you’d be forgiven for lazily presuming that the former Minister for the Environment would be more in his comfort zone debating constituency boundaries, than being quizzed on the likes of Republic of Loose or The Radiators From Space. But you’d be wrong.

“I just love Irish rock bands,” enthuses the 42-year-old Tipperary TD. “I’m a Thin Lizzy nut. I’d be fanatical. That’s certainly a piece of me that most people don’t know.”