Taoiseach Bertie Ahern told these Dublin youngsters that in his young days there was very little money for buying books so each September he took out all the books he needed from the public library and at the end of the year he took them back and simply paid the fines. Here he is with Lord Mayor John Stafford launching Microsoft's Libraries Online! at Ballyfermot Public Library on Thursday.
Ireland is certainly a changed place. We have a Taoiseach who is separated, a Tanaiste who is single and our next President could be a divorcee. Of the four nominated Presidential candidates, only Fine Gael's Mary Banotti is on her own. Twenty-eight years ago she married an Italian doctor, Giovanni Banotti, who she met while working as a nurse in Kenya. They divorced three years later and he is now remarried and living in Italy. Their daughter Tanya is 27 and works with the UN in Gaza. The other three candidates have pretty conventional backgrounds. Dermot McAleese is Belfastborn. Having qualified and worked as an accountant he returned to college in 1980 to study dentistry at TCD and now has a practice in south Armagh. He and Mary McAleese have four children. Tipperary-born Adi Roche's husband Sean Dunne is a music teacher. The couple do not have children.
Dana's husband, Damien Scallon, is from Irvinestown, Co Fermanagh. He worked in the hotel business for many years but later became Dana's manager and was involved in Eternal World Television Network. He now works with her full-time. The couple have four children aged from 17 to eight years. One question raised during the week was whether two of the candidates, if successful, would have difficulty visiting home. The President requires the permission of the Government to leave the country, so when Mary McAleese wants to go to Belfast or Dana to Derry (or indeed Alabama) does the request have to go to Cabinet each time? Or is Northern Ireland, as part of the national territory, exempt?