DEIRDRE GILLANE

The chief of staff who calls her boss Mickey Joe

Ms Gillane served as

Mr Martin’s chief of staff during his nine years as President of

Fianna Fáil – she has been his chief adviser for 20 years. A former nurse and

INO organiser, she went to work for Mr

Martin after a tragedy. When Bertie Ahern made Mr Martin Minister for Health in 2000 he appointed Deirdre Gillane’s close friend and nursing colleague Gobnait O’Connell his policy advisor. Gobnait died in a car crash and Ms Gillane was asked to fill her dear friend’s place.

She is a soft-spoken but commanding presence in the back room team of the man she calls ‘Mickey Joe’. If you can’t get to the Taoiseach, speaking to her will be almost as good as he treats her with such regard and respect that Fianna Fáil accept she represents him unimpeachably.

She is also known within the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party as somebody not to cross and any slight on the leader will be remembered.

Female members of the parliamentary party tout her as a resolute defender of their rights in a male-dominated party. And those who know Martin’s political journey see Gillane as central to his liberal attitudes on social issues.

She left Martin’s team briefly in 2010 as she was seen as the only person in Government who could possibly save Brian Cowen’s floundering premiership. Sadly for Cowen it was too late to bring this most able of backroom fixers into his team.

From Glasheen, outside Cork, she considers herself ‘half-Limerick’ as her father hails from there.