Awkward questions to be asked of a man of conviction

“Lady, I tell you, I am a leader of men, of a football team, of a......”

I can’t remember the rest. Only the sight of the little man with the strange-coloured hair, rising from his seat and standing on his tip-toes to shout ever louder at me in Italian.

This was Silvio Berlusconi and I had just come from an end-of- summit briefing with then taoiseach Bertie Ahern, who was quietly confident Ireland would do all it could to pick up the pieces of the proposed European constitution, and do whatever it could to get agreement during its upcoming six-month presidency of the EU.