Des Kenny, Chief executive officer, National Council for the Blind of Ireland.
Personal/family: Married with three sons (Aidan, Collyn and Declan) and three daughters (Claire, Denise and Myra).
What figure from the world of medicine or health do you most admire?
Marie Curie.
What other career might you have chosen?
Writer and poet.
If you could grant three wishes for the health service, what would they be?
Enlargement of GP practices into family and community health centres with X-ray and blood testing facilities as well as nursing and therapy staff supporting the GPs. Care taken with the new central structures to ensure they don't ignore the strengths and tactical wisdom of fully utilising local staff and regional service delivery systems. Ensure that the new chief executive of the HSE will have the courage to abandon and reform the structures within the existing health system that are unworkable or fail to prove their efficacy.
What is your greatest fear?
I don't really have any great fear. I believe I could come to terms with most things which might initially be viewed as "dreadful".
Have you ever been a patient and were you a good one?
I know that I would not make a good patient as I do not like to be in a position where people can have a tendency to treat me like an idiot. I have a positive mental attitude to my health and therefore haven't been seriously ill for more than 36 years.
When or where are you happiest?
When on holidays in places of historical note such as Greece or Egypt.
How do you cope with stress?
Stress is an inevitable part of modern life with long working hours. I catnap when I get tired or lose myself in reading when I feel stress building which, by my own definition, is when I feel myself being distracted by too many thoughts.
What is the trait you most admire in yourself?
The capacity to trust others and to believe in the basic goodness in people, which responds to trust.
What is the trait you most dislike in yourself?
Impatience with people's discovery of the obvious.
Do you use alternative or complementary medicine or therapies?
Occasionally I indulge in either aromatherapy or Thai massage in order to totally switch off.
Who or what makes you laugh?
I like the bizarre and comic side of life and can laugh with it and not at it.
What is your motto?
"A captain's duty of care for his ship does not mean that he must not take it out of the harbour," (Thomas Aquinas). This is how I perceive risk and the challenge of going beyond the safety of the known into the discoveries of the unknown.
What is your favourite TV or radio programme?
Morning Ireland. It sets me up for the day.
What books would you bring to a desert island?
The collected poems of Seamus Heaney, Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson (although I would prefer to have internet access to Wikipedia.org).
(Interview by Fiona Tyrrell)