Health hazard

Enterprise and Employment Minister Micheál Martin talks to Political Editor Harry McGee about the trials and triumphs of eight years in office.

WHEN I tell people I’m interviewing Micheál Martin, most of them arch their eyebrows and come back with the line that was funny the first time we heard it but is clichéd now: “Ah, Micheál, the former future leader.”

It’s a cheap line but you can’t help think about it as you wait in the ante-room outside the minister’s office in Kildare Street. Bedecking the walls are the portraits of former Ministers for Enterprise and Employment (or Industry and Commerce, as they were once known).