Michael Boland - GP; director, Postgraduate Centre, Irish College of GPs; chair, Board of the Office of Tobacco Control; president, World Organisation of Family Doctors
Personal & Family: Married to Susan, social worker (fostering). Three children - Eve (23), Mary Jane (20), Michael (18).
What figure from the world of health/medicine do you most admire?
Ian McWhinney, pioneering professor of family medicine, London, Ontario, Canada.
What alternative career might you have chosen?
Intended to be a barrister but switched to medicine three months before starting.
If you were appointed Minister for Health, what would be your first priority?
Restore real choice of hospital and specialist to patients using the public health service. Give much more financial autonomy and accountability to the doctors, nurses and other health professionals who actually deliver health services.
Do you have a phobia/what is your greatest fear?
Living too long.
Have you ever been a patient and were you a good one?
Thank God, not yet. Likely to be non-compliant and impossible.
What three books would you bring to a desert island?
In Flanders Fields: Passchendaele 1917 by Leon Wolff; Wild Swans by Jung Chang; Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Simone Beck.
Have you a fail-safe method of dealing with stress?
Moving on! Also shopping in Fields of Skibbereen, the best small supermarket in Ireland. Time out in a small boat amongst the islands between Baltimore and Schull, in west Cork.
What is your favourite TV or radio programme?
Mostly news, current affairs, and films. Also British comedy - recently The Office.
If you did not live in Ireland, where would you choose to spend the rest of your life?
Northern Italy or Tuscany.
Summarise yourself in 12 words?
Failed obsessional; relaxed Catholic; unelected politician; international Irishman, specialised generalist; ageing juvenile.
Do you use alternative medicine/therapies?
Never. I don't believe in them - just as I don't believe in Santa Claus, the fairies or little green men from Mars although all of them add interest and humanity to our lives - as long as we are not desperate and dying from cancer.
Who or what makes you laugh?
Quite a large part of everyday living in Ireland.