It was without regret that Ivan Yates announced yesterday he was going to depart from politics after two decades as a Dail deputy. There is no hidden agenda, no political reason - he says he has simply had enough.
Mr Yates (41) has "enjoyed every minute" of his time in the Dail, but has grown weary of trying to juggle the demands of four young children, being a member the front bench and running his chain of betting shops, Celtic Bookmakers. He now wants to concentrate on expanding that business.
"I want to tilt at that rather than tilting at Bertie Ahern and Mary O'Rourke, or anyone else." He had gone to John Bruton last June and said he wanted to opt out but was pressured into not doing so. "With each passing week I regretted I hadn't been more categoric."
Now he wants to slip out before the new leader is elected or a frontbench team is chosen.
Asked why he was taking this decision when he could have been a possible leader of Fine Gael or Taoiseach, Mr Yates replied: "All politicians, myself included, are pretentious peo ple. I don't think it is necessarily the case I could have been party leader if I wanted.
"In terms of my aspiring to it and aiming for it and spending time in the Dail bar and doing the chicken-and-chips circuit and all that, I turned away from that two years ago." Politics, he believes, has become very cynical and he would not have wished to become a malcontent.
He chose to hold his press conference at the RDS yesterday, staying away from Leinster House.
He said he was going to take a few days off and that he had not spoken to any of the four leadership contenders over the past few days since he had not been taking any telephone calls. He would be voting on Friday in the leadership contest but refused to say who he was supporting.
"It would be utterly inappropriate for me to influence it when I am not standing in the next General Election."
He believed whoever was elected party leader on Friday would become Taoiseach, and "knowing my luck, Fine Gael will be in government for the next 10 years".
Mr Yates left school at the age of 16 and joined Fine Gael at 17, going on to give his "entire adult life to politics". His late father, John F. Yates, had not approved of his choice.
"I come from a Protestant background and my family would have been distrustful of politics, they would have felt it was a dubious profession. But to be truthful they feel equally dubious about bookmaking. I can't win," he said, laughing.
Mr Yates said he wished to express his "deep appreciation" for the people of Wexford who had elected him seven times to the Dail, and said he would leave politics with far more friends than enemies.
Politics, he concluded, was a team game and anyone who thought otherwise was fooling themselves. "Legacies are like your next meal - they don't last."
He would not be changing his mind about leaving politics. "This is my final, final answer."