8 Questions for Eamon Gilmore

What are three things you can’t live without?

“My wife and children, brown bread in the morning and now my iPad.”

What’s your motto/advice that you live by?

“Every problem has a solution.”

Why did you become a politician?

To change things. At the stage that I stood for election I was working for a trade union and it became clear to me that some of the issues I was coming across, like the needs that working people had, could only be resolved by changes in legislation, by changes in the system. That’s what drew me into political activity, to seek to bring about changes.

Ten years from now where will you be?

I think I will still be a Labour TD for Dun Laoghaire, certainly I would like to be serving the people of the constituency, working on their behalf. That’s as far as my work situation is concerned. As far myself is concerned, ten years from now I’ll be ten years wiser, I will have learned ten years more learning and therefore be able to see things a lot better probably than I see them now.

What are you currently reading?

I’m currently reading the People’s History of the United States. Can’t remember who’s the author of it. But it’s a history written from the perspective of ordinary people. It’s not written from the perspective of big leaders. Most of the histories of America are written from the Columbus perspective, this is written from the experience of the native Americans and the degree to which they were slaughtered, right through the whole period of when people participated in the Civil War.

Name four guests for your ideal dinner party?

Roy Keane, Sinead O’Connor, Brian Friel, Julia Roberts.

What keeps you awake at night?

Black and white movies. I watch old classic movies. Last night, believe it or not, for about the 20th time, I watched a chunk of Casablanca.

What is your funniest political memory?

I remember a story of Pat Rabbitte and Ray Burke on the old Dublin County Council. Burke was chairman of the county council. Rabbitte got up and engaged in some exchanges with Burke. In the course of it, Rabbitte said to Burke “if I was in your position now” and Burke says to him “if you’re ever in my position, it will be the end of the county council”. As it turned out, Rabbitte did become chairman of the county council and it was the end of it because he was chairman of it the year that it was split up.