Is the social welfare system in this country, in its current state, is this sustainable? Because we can't keep squeezing blood out of the self-employed sector to fund this social welfare system, which is exactly what it feels like right now.

Well, there's a particular problem with the welfare state, which is today there are about 650,000 pensioners over 66 in about 16 years' time, which won't be that long, 14, 16 years.

There'll be 1.6 million.

There's an extra million people and no financial provision.

has made for that huge extra bill that's coming down the track, both the public sector pensions and the cost of the old age pension and fringe benefits.

So that point of view, it is utterly unsustainable.

But the question is much deeper than that.

Where do you start and what do you change?

[laughs]

And that is the start of a wonderful relationship.

And so this book brings you through all the things they don't teach you in college, and the context of it is, uh, on Friday, tomorrow, I'm 67.

I left school at 16, 17.

My father was terminally ill.

And basically, in the 50 years, 76 to 26, everything I ever learnt about getting on, 'cause I started from ground zero in politics.

Had no background whatsoever.

Mm-hmm.

Did you learn that in politics originally?

Eh, well, put it like this.

I mean, like, there are a lot of circumstances where you can't apply that.

Like, you want to be in a very senior position to tell others to get out of the room.

But no, I, I, I would say that there, there's a number of techniques that I describe.

And I also talk about happiness in this book.

In other words, that, like, you know, no amount of money, I think, really ...

So what did you learn about that process?

no room

For luck.

Ah, well, you can't control your luck.

I know Gary Player said, the golfer, the more I practice, the luckier I get.

Luck is being in the right place at the right time because you prepared properly.

So I say more than aptitude, attitude is the whole thing.

I'm going to work so hard at this that someone's going to knock my door.

And so gambling is the ultimate wave tsunami coming in on the shore and wiping them out in a sort of a sense of perverse self-righteousness.

Yes.

So I give you devices like you get all your problems, you write them down.

Now, put them in two queues, things I can do something about and things I can't do something about, and the latter go at the back of the queue.

And secondly, like you get up early and you work out.

Come 5:30, there's no more I can do about this problem today.

Talk to my accountant, solicitor, or whatever.

So I'm not, I'm, I'm not gonna stress about it.

Yeah.

When you're managing so many at the start contacts, how do they not, from a capacity perspective, how do

you make it work? Well, put it like this.

If you get a barman, what's the biggest skill? Danny and knowing it's a pint of Guinness you have.

That makes you feel 10 foot tall.

If I meet you and then the next time I meet you, I don't know your name.

So remember, so this talks you through all of the little details.

So this is kind of, this works.

I was all leasehold, but I

When you're managing so many at the start contacts, how do they not, from a capacity perspective, how do

you make it work? Well, put it like this.

If you get a barman, what's the biggest skill? Danny and knowing it's a pint of Guinness you have.

That makes you feel 10 foot tall.

If I meet you and then the next time I meet you, I don't know your name.

So remember, so this talks you through all of the little details.

So this is kind of, this works.

I was all leasehold, but I

But first of all, explain to me why you reckon you're well placed to offer advice to people.

Well, I left school in difficult circumstances.

I was in St. Columbus College's border and my father was dying of cancer.

And I just on my O-levels and they said, forget your education, forget the leave insert.

So I never sat the leave insert.

That was in 1976, 50 years later in 2026.

I have started three careers, really, at ground zero.

But when you look back now, being taken out of school so young before you're leaving, how much of an impact did your father's death and that move in your life have on you?

Have your political views changed to the 21-year-old that started off?

Eh, not as much as maybe they should.

Uh, I still believe in an enterprise economy.

I believe in creating wealth before distributing it.

And I think there's actually two types of politicians.

Those who believe, uh, say, Ireland Inc. sets it apart from Germany, France, Spain, uh, UK.

We can't live off our own consumption.

How does the Trump thing end?

But did politics attract, were you kind of active at school? Where did you, were you at eight? Would you believe it? You weren't active in social presence,

students unions, stuff like that? No, no, I'll tell you exactly what it was about.

I was in St. Columbus and my father got ill and I had to leave early after O-Level, so I didn't set to leave.

I went to Gertrude College, had a ball.

I went there at 16 in temporary, was a virgin, hadn't smoked or drank, and I had a PhD in 03 by the end of that year.

A real, my best year of my life.

I had a great time.

Exactly.