Paschal’s not poster boy for a good night’s sleep
POLITICIANS don’t get much sleep, generally. Maggie Thatcher was an Iron Lady in the leaba, boasting about how she got by on as little as four hours a night at the height of her powers in the 1980s.
Another of the Tory party’s great heroes from their patchy past, wartime leader Winston Churchill, only clocked up four to five hours a night.
Though he famously topped this up with a little nap after a tipple of something strong every afternoon.
American presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump all only slept about five hours a night.
So Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe can take heart in being in high company, if he found himself experiencing a sleepless weekend.
Donohoe, the hard-working Public Expenditure Minister here in Ireland and
President of the Eurogroup of Finance Ministers in Europe, doesn’t spend much time in the cot either.
Apart from the heavy work schedule his top roles in politics bring, he’s also a bit of a Renaissance Man.
For an Irish politician, his drive across a cultural spectrum is impressive.
He has a breadth of interests beyond the norm in politicians, with the exception of Sinn Fein’s high-brow housing minister, writer Eoin O Broin.
Not only is Paschal well-read in economics and business – good for the job – but he’s also a fan of fiction, particularly female writers.
He reviews books for the magazine supplements of the Irish Times and Business Post.
He’s also an avid fan of the role-playing Dungeons and Dragons, and revealed at a PR launch before Christmas that he was
Bobble heads from fantasy movies like Star Wars & Harry Potter
a practising D&D master in his youth. And he’s a well-known alternative music fan – more M.I.A than MOR. It’s easy to forget he’s only in his 40s.
But the Gen X era he’s from shows up in his attendance at gigs like LCD Soundsystem (The One Where Leo got called a “tosser” by one of the band members).
He’s also a fan of Ryan Adams, The Waterboys and Arcade Fire. He’s a movie buff – the bobble heads of characters from various fantasy movies like Star Wars and Harry Potter sit on his ministerial desk.
All in all, you’d wonder if the fella ever sleeps.
Unfortunately, it’s likely he has been getting even less rest over the past number of nights as he’s at the centre of the political storm tagged Postergate.
The scandal arose from an error he made in not declaring a political donation by way of free postering services from a businessman, Michael Stone, during the 2016 General Election campaign.
This has caused him sleepless nights since it first came to light 10 days ago.
And with Paschal set for his showdown in the Dail tomorrow afternoon, he faces another long night of the soul tonight.