They call me a square for only smoking a joint once... it just made me paranoid
Former minister on lockdown & her future political dreams
REGINA Doherty raised eyebrows when she jumped ship from Co Meath to her new Dublin Fingal constituency.
But it would be unfair to brand the former Government minister a blow-in.
You could even say it’s more like the U2’s song A Sort Of Homecoming – seeing as Regina “grew up around the corner” from Bono in Cedarwood estate in Dublin’s Ballymun.
And Fine Gael’s new leader in the Seanad had a massive crush on the band’s drummer Larry Mullen.
She told the Irish Sunday Mirror: “I think he’s getting better looking with age. He’s lovely, but he was always lovely.
“Myself and one of my cousins used to be mad about him and every poster you’d get in every magazine would be on the walls. A fine bit of stuff is what he was.”
It sounds like Regina did not go through a major rebellious wild streak in her youth.
She joked how some Dail colleagues called her “such a square for only ever having tried smoking a joint once”.
Regina once dabbled with the illegal substance at Robbie Williams gig at Slane Castle in 1999.
I have a good marriage, great kids, very loving parents and a job I love REGINA DOHERTY GIVES THANKS FOR HER ALL THE BLESSINGS IN HER LIFE
PARANOID
Speaking about her experience of smoking cannabis, she said: “I was totally paranoid. It feels like a lifetime ago.”
The former Government Chief Whip is certainly no party pooper though.
Regina likes the occasional tipple and will no doubt celebrate her upcoming 50th birthday on January 26 in style with a glass of champers.
She said: “The older I get the more comfortable I feel in my own skin.
“I have a good marriage, great kids, very loving parents and a job I love.”
In jest, she added: “If I could loose a few pounds now I’d be deadly!”
Regina admitted she started to question her drinking habits during the early days of the lockdown.
She explained: “I would normally never drink during the week.
“It would be Friday before I’d have a glass of wine.
“I found myself during April/may/ June having a glass of wine on a Monday because the sun was shining.
“Or having a beer on a Wednesday – and that would be unheard of.
“I needed to say, ‘Hang on a second here’.
“Because you’re at home all day, every day, doesn’t mean you’re on your holidays. There was no raging sessions. It was just too easy to go to the fridge at six o’clock and take out a beer – and that wouldn’t have been normal.
“I thought, ‘Jesus! On a Monday – this is mad. You need to stop this. This is not normal’.
“So, that needed to be put in check. Once I copped on and I stopped it, it was grand.”
The former Minister of Employment Affairs and Social Protection reckons she partially lost her Dail seat because of “the whole controversy around the pension age”.
She also admitted to making the
huge mistake of focusing all her efforts on her ministerial brief – much to the detriment of her own constituency.
Does Regina think the rivalry in Meath East between her camp and FG constituency colleague Minister Helen Mcentee was also another reason?
She admitted: “Ah, yeah of course it was.
“There’s a healthy tension that’s required when you’re on the same team to lift everybody’s votes – we didn’t have that.
“I don’t think there was ever a same team – and that’s fair enough.”
She added: “There wasn’t a case of ‘I don’t like you because’ and ‘you don’t like me because’. We never had that kind of a friendship to discover deep enough about each other.”
Despite past rivalry, Regina is quick to praise Justice Minister Mcentee as being an “incredibly ambitious, bright, intelligent woman”.
AMBITIONS
But she warned: “I open either newspapers or my inbox literally daily and I can see ambitions to change this, to reform that [in the Department of Justice.]
“If anything I would fear that we would be taking on too much and then nothing might get resolved. I just would be fearful that there’s so much to be done that you might end up spreading yourself a little bit thin.” Regina admits she “absolutely” thought about walking away from politics after losing her seat last year. She revealed: “I was 49 and if you’re going to do something new you don’t want to be leaving it too late. “Because at some point Irish society decides you’re too old to be employed. “And I was on that cusp that I reckoned that if I didn’t make the break now that I would regret it.”
But she had a change of heart after being appointed to the emergency Covid-19 cabinet.
It made her realise she would miss the hustle and bustle of daily politics.
How does it sit with her now being a Senator seeing as she was FG’S deputy director of election for the Seanead Abolition Referendum in 2013?
She said: “I felt a bit of a hypocrite and so that’s why when Fine Gael [originally] asked me to run in the Seanad back in February I said no. I’ve gotten over that now. You’d really want to have a brass neck for it not to rest a little uneasy on you.”
Regina doesn’t rule out throwing her hat into the ring the next time FG has a leadership contest.
She concluded: “I always thought I was too selfish to be a leader as my commitment to my family was more important to me than what the required commitment to the party would be if you were a leader.
“But my ducklings are all grown teenagers or adults now and need me less and less and since I’m still only a ‘young-one’ – never say never!”