A New Life: Peter Cassidy does not miss the days of broadcasting an empty Dáil chamber, he tells Lorna Siggins
Governments have come and gone under the watchful eye of Peter Cassidy. If a TD bumped into him in the street, he'd not only know their name - he could advise them on their best profile.
However, the former director of Dáil chamber broadcasting could also sell them a plug or an edging trowel.
He has now left Leinster House behind him to run a hardware shop with his wife, Sabrina, in Galway's seaside suburb of Salthill.
It is slightly more than six months since the Dubliner took the decision, having spent two years agonising over the need to make a change after 14 years in Kildare Street.
He was there from live broadcasting's inception. "I had previously worked as a tape operator with a company called Spitfire Television in London, and then freelanced for Sky for a while before coming back to Dublin to work with Windmill Lane.
"Business got a bit slack, Windmill Lane fired me and then re-hired me to set up in Leinster House when they got the first contract there.
"I was on captions at the beginning, and we were all learning, because live televising of a Dáil debate had never been done before. All the cameras were controlled by robotic arms, as it was felt that a physical presence in the chamber might be intrusive.
"When you think of it, five cameras for 166 deputies could be quite an undertaking, if there was a heated debate. You had to get them quickly, and initially TDs would complain if we missed them or if they felt we got a bad profile of them.
"However, 95 per cent of the time there would be only five deputies in the chamber, and that was pretty straightforward.
"It wasn't long before stenographers were availing of the broadcasting unit to check details they might have missed for the Dáil record," he says.
"But the big days were the stressful days - visits of foreign dignitaries like Blair and Schröder," he says.
The daily routine still involved witnessing history - when he started out, Charles J Haughey was taoiseach. He recalls Mr Haughey quoting Shakespeare before he finally left the chamber, after he was replaced by Albert Reynolds in 1992.
Five years after the birth of their only daughter, Blu (9), the O'Carroll-Cassidys decided to move west. Sabrina had just finished a diploma in counselling at Trinity College, Dublin. Peter switched to a three-day working week in the Dáil, and commuted from their new home in Kinvara, Co Galway.
"At the same time, I also knew that I had taken that first step towards heading out of Dublin," he says.
"The commuting was very stressful. I would arrive home after a pretty intensive three days, with very long hours at times, but then I could switch off." He knew it wasn't something he could sustain, and was "desperately" trying to think of alternatives. "I even racked my brains to try to remember what I wanted to be as a kid."
Several years before, Sabrina's father, John O'Carroll, had made his own career change. A publican in Galway for 33 years, he decided to take over a hardware shop in Salthill. However, he became ill and died in August 2003.
"John had talked to me about taking over from him," Peter says. "I remember saying I might because I wanted to buoy him up, but I didn't really think that either of us were serious.
"At the same time, I am very task-orientated, and there was something about the shop that I enjoyed. There's a lot of contact with people, and John, who had been an electronics engineer before going into the pub business, could repair almost any electrical appliance and do deliveries for some of our older customers. And there's a lot of satisfaction in that, particularly when you talk to people who have been to Woodies, found they couldn't get anyone who knew anything about anything, and who have sworn that they will never go back."
Peter and Sabrina took over running the business after John's death. Peter says he spent the first few weeks trying to find things.
"There may be 6,000 items here, and you have to know where they are. Losing profit is not the issue - it is all about being able to satisfy the customer. John had a reputation for stocking a needle to an anchor, and that was something we had to maintain."
The couple have kept the stools in the shop for customers, they still do deliveries for those who need it, and they have painted the shopfront. "Family and friends helped out, but I suppose we have both been here six days a week for the past eight months," he says.
Peter Cassidy can't say if he will be in the hardware business for the rest of his life.
"It is very satisfying - and I realise now that the lack of feedback was something that was missing from my last job. And I also feel that service is so important to people. You can make a living, just by being nice and giving people time."
"But now that I have given up one job, and the security of that weekly cheque, I know I could do it again. The fear of change is gone."