Daniel McConnell

A lot of Chatham House rules, but they are always saying delivery, delivery, delivery.

And they all point the finger of blame at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform as a blocker.

The Department of No, as it's core locally known.

And I'm not going to personalise it, but they think that the top brass in there

are a byproduct of the crash.

Is it your experience that it is a department of no and it is overly obstructive in getting the sort of things that need to get done?

I think more of the prism is laid at the officials as opposed to political leaders.

But do you think it's right for the likes of Antasca to be blocking major infrastructure?

Talk to me about the difference between being a minister and say a backbench TD.

Pascal Dunhuist sat in a podcast studio with me before and he said it's night.

It's a world of difference.

How does your day differ from being a TD where you're probably on a committee or you're a committee chair to being a minister?

And how long are those people with you?

I was actually going to get into that.

Did you ever think, not to interrupt there, but I mean, when you lost your seat and you went into the Seannacht, and the Seannacht was obviously, you used it as a platform to go back, it kept you in the national political space, but did you ever think, that's done, I'll find another career, I'll go off and do it, or were you just...

I've always felt sorry for those who've lost their seat, their doll seat, to then have to get stuck into a Shannon campaign to try and get elected.

But no disrespect to Brian, I wrote a book on him.

He got his numbers wrong a few times.

Because you're exhausted anyway.

I remember that.