Karen Kiernan, director of One Family, provider of specialist support services for one-parent families.
Personal/family:I've lived in Dublin for 38 years except for a four-year stint in San Francisco in the 1990s and one year travelling in southeast Asia.
What figure from the world of medicine or health do you most admire?
I admire Dr Michael Solomons, who recently passed away. He saw the need to address the fact that Irish women had no control over their reproductive lives and worked to introduce contraception to Ireland. He founded the Irish Family Planning Association in 1969.
What other career might you have chosen?
I've had a number of careers already. I studied botany and became a science and biology teacher. Later I worked with emotionally disturbed teenagers. I may change my career again. I have an interest in secular ritual - the celebration of birth, marriage and death in a secular way. When I lived in the US I performed two marriages. I even married my mother.
If you could grant three wishes for the health service, what would they be?
Medical cards for all children; prioritisation of those on the waiting list based on need rather than ability to pay; and availability of equitable services in pregnancy, whereby women and couples experiencing crisis pregnancies could have all options available to them.
What is your greatest fear?
EU statistics released last week indicate that one-parent families are 4.5 times more likely to live in consistent poverty than the general population. My fear is that because the Budget did not do enough for vulnerable parents and their children, 2008 will be a very hard year for them.
Have you ever been a patient and were you a good one?
I have never been a patient thank goodness.
When or where are you happiest?
Professionally I am at my happiest every year in July when we have a graduation event in Dublin Castle attended by 100 families. It's a celebration of the work that the lone parents did during the adult education, parenting, IT courses we run.
How do you cope with stress?
I walk to and from work.
What is the trait you most admire in yourself?
I have recently learned that I am a courageous person. Courage was also a major trait of the founders of this organisation; the handful of mothers who set up Cherish, as it was called then, in 1972.
What is the trait you most dislike in yourself?
I can lose optimism more easily than I would wish to.
Do you use alternative or complementary medicine or therapies?
I do. At the moment I am going to a physician who also does acupuncture.
Who or what makes you laugh?
I love Malcolm in The Middle on TV. The mania of the mother character is very funny.
What is your motto?
It's not about me. I learned a valuable lesson early in my career working with emotionally distressed teenage girls that as a service provider you are often not that important as an individual to the person you are working with. Your role is to support them. It's important to remember to put your ego and personal needs aside.
What is your favourite TV or radio programme?
On TV it's Ugly Betty and The Sopranos and on radio it's The Ray D'arcy Show and Morning Ireland.
What books would you bring to a desert islands?
Our founder Maura Richards wrote a book called Single Issue. I try to re-read it every year.
One Family will have a Christmas helpline in December and January - tel: 1890-662212.
In conversation with Fiona Tyrrell