‘It was a nightmare, you were cutting wages, cutting social welfare, cutting schemes’

Hours after Britain voted for Brexit in 2016 Prime Minister David Cameron stepped down saying: "All political lives end in failure."
Of course he was paraphrasing the late Ulster Unionist Enoch Powell who put forward his belief many years before that: "All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure."
While politically, he might not have shared much common ground with the likes of Cameron or Powell, Noel Dempsey can appreciate the sentiment they sought to express.

When it comes to politics the Trim man has been there, done that. He spent much of his career as a minister in various Fianna Fail administrations from 1997 to 2011; Environment and Local Government Transport; Communications, Marine and Natural Resources; Education and Science; plus a slew of minister of state roles.

His impressive CV also includes other notable achievements such becoming a Government chief whip at a relatively young age and introducing the most comprehensive package of parliamentary reforms; successfully managing various election campaigns - and yet his final years in politics was messy, overshadowed by an economic crisis that hit the country with all the force of a hurricane.  
Sitting in his spacious, glass-fronted home at Newtown on the edge of Trim recently, Dempsey reflected on the fact that he had just turned 65 (his birthday is on 6th January) and how the vast majority of those years were spent in politics.
For most of that time he was happy, fulfilled when he felt he made a difference.

He introduced measures that allowed more people to access third level education through the Special Grant Rate and introduced the 'Education for Persons with Special Disabilities Act' in 2003. His work in reducing road deaths and injuries in Ireland earned him the EU PIN award; introduced the innovative levy on plastic shopping bags, comprehensively reformed local government; his Planning and Development act is still the bedrock of planning law in Ireland; he led the planning and development of Ireland's motorway system. Others achievements included the reforming of the public transport system which brought more competition into the sector. He also put in place Ireland's first ever comprehensive energy strategy. 

Yet it was the final three years that many will remember and he came to describe as "horrendous"; those years from 2008 to 2011 when the Fianna Fail-led Government found itself grappling with unprecedented problems as the banking system collapsed and the economy hit the rocks.
"When you think about it I was 35 years in politics, 32 I really enjoyed, I felt I had achieved things," he says. "I can look back over my time in national politics and say 'yeah I achieved a lot' but then this thing pops up in the end."
The "thing" of course was the economic crisis - and it literally left Noel Dempsey in a cold sweat - still does.
"It was an absolute nightmare, 2008 to 2011, during those particular years you were going in there, you had six or seven budgets. No matter what you say about politicians we all want to do things that are positive for people. That's what they get into politics for, we were going into meeting after meeting. We had three or four budgets one after another, you were taking stuff off people (his voice goes low), cutting wages, cutting social welfare, we were cutting schemes," he recalled. 
"I have a big family of siblings (he's one of 12 sons), they have kids, they were being affected the same way as other people so I was hearing it from them as much as I was hearing it from anybody else. You would want to be totally inhuman not to, so the stress levels went through the roof, sleep wasn't, it wasn't sleep you were going getting, you were going to bed tired and getting up tired.
"It was the shock of one meeting after the next. There was a stage in 2009 where we had maybe two cabinet meetings a week and you were making decisions you had to do this and you had to do this or that, and maybe two days later you would be back in the same room making similar decisions."

At cabinet meetings Dempsey got an indication just how bad things were before his colleagues. 
"Because of the seating arrangement at cabinet meetings, I was beside Brian Lenihan (Minister for Finance). He was the next person to me and I'd get the thing even before the start of the meeting. I'd be saying to him 'What's the story here?' and he'd be saying 'Jaysus it's worse the situation has got' that kind of thing and it got worse and worse and there was no sign of anything.
"I suppose the only relief, no I wouldn't even call it relief, was that I felt we might be getting some control of the thing when we published the four-year plan which we were required to do by the EU to show that we could get through all of this which was later used as the basis for a recovery and which 'worked' in inverted commas, in the period from 2011 onwards but, sure, you'd wake up in the night in a cold sweat. 

"I've said it before, on the Marian Finucane Show, every now and again I still wake up in a cold sweat thinking back on it. It was just so much (pause) so much at the end I announced I wasn't contesting the next election. The truth of the matter was I wasn't able, I was physically, mentally exhausted, totally."
He says a vigorous regime of exercise helped to keep him to "hold onto sanity" and cope with the unique pressures involved. When he did retire from politics, he says it took him over a year to find his "equilibrium" once again. 
As a youngster Noel Dempsey attended St Michael's CBS, Trim before going on UCD. He qualified as a teacher but politics had fascinated him from an early age. 

Noel laughs when he is reminded how, as a very young man, he chose Fianna Fail above the rest. He requested information on policy from the various parties. Only Fianna Fail replied. Noel Dempsey resolved to become a ‘soldier of destiny’.
Young Noel's rise was meteoric. He spent a time on Meath Co Council before standing for the general election in 1987 - and making the cut. In 1991 he became one of the so-called 'Gang of Four' joining MJ Nolan, Sean Power and Liam Fitzgerald in tabling a motion of no confidence in Taoiseach Charles J Haughey as party leader. It was a brave stance.  
"It was Charlie Haughey who added me onto the FF ticket for the '87 election, I wasn't selected at convention. I was very much an admirer of him at the time but very quickly over the next three or four years you saw him at close quarters, you began to say he's not as bad as he's painted but he's not as good as you thought either." 
The young TD from Meath didn't agree with various aspects of Haughey's leadership, then there was the scandals.  Dempsey was also horrified to hear Haughey refer to how Chinese leaders go on until their 80s and 90s. 
"My dad (Michael) would have been a big Charlie Haughey fan and he was never slow to give advice as anybody who knew him would tell you, whether it was about football or politics or anything else but he was at me for ages and he'd say there's another scandal, he'll bring the government down. 

"The evening before we decided to make the statement questioning Haughey and some of the judgements we agreed to tell absolutely nobody except spouses and Sean Power said I'll have to tell my my dad, PJ Nolan said I'll have to tell my mam and dad. When I was at home the usual greeting was: 'What's that fella doing?' I said look dad four of us are going to make a statement and he said: 'What? Ah Noel you can't do that sure he'll bury you.' All the objective advice went out the window, he was a father first." Haughey didn't bury Noel Dempsey's career. Instead the Meathman pushed on to greater things.