Ivan Yates

I went to Eric and I said, why are we doing this?

I said it was one thing when I had to go through 686 candidates in the last general election, no chance, some chance we'll get elected.

There was a huge amount to work and there was no one else doing it in that level of micro deed.

Like, especially when Jim pulled out, I said, look, for the love of, why am I doing this?

But he said, no, look, you've agreed to do it, so do it.

So basically, on a particular day, I had done an event for Kildare Chamber that morning.

I had done an event for the Farm Tractor Machinery Trade Association that

And I had to get a driver because my wife was abroad on one of her extended holidays to drive me to news talk.

And I had more s*** the next day.

And the fact of the matter is that what actually happened was, I was surprised to say I did that on a Wednesday or Thursday.

I found that leading the 9 o'clock RT news was this quote from me.

No, no, no, no, no.

I said, like...

So I use colourful phrases all the time.

They don't appear on the six and nine o'clock news.

What happened was the Connolly campaign seized this, right, and actually used that, put it on all their social media things as a memo, as a former Fine Gael minister, that I was advising Fine Gael to do this.

I haven't been involved in Fianna Gael politics.

In fact, the irony was any work I was doing was for Fianna Fáil in terms of coaching and training.

So the reality is that it was a kind of flippant throwaway remark.

And, you know, the truth of it is, the truth of it is that there was...