'I wouldn't be willing to put my name out there unless I felt there was a chance I would win.' With those words, Ms Kathryn Sinnot, mother of nine, indefatigable fighter for the rights of the less fortunate, and probably one of the most determined people in the State, signalled to all other candidates in the Cork South Central constituency that her mind is nearly made up and she is preparing to enter politics at the next election. Dick Hogan reports
If she goes ahead, as now seems likely, it will be bad news for the other candidates.
At the very least, she could take votes from all sides in a direct appeal to the electorate. At worst, she could harness the antipathy which exists towards the machinery of State which raised its might against her in the Sinnot appeal and after the callous way it treated people in the Hepatitis C scandal.
Ms Kathryn Sinnot, running as an independent, could cause an upset at the expense of one of the sitting TDs or other hopefuls. It would be an extraordinary achievement if she won a seat.
However, who would have thought this woman, on her own and with willpower as her main weapon, would breach the walls of officialdom until they crumbled when the High Court found in her favour in October 2000.
None of the other candidates would relish the prospect of Ms Sinnot campaigning against them.
Her track record is the honesty and bravery she showed in bringing her plight and that of her son to the attention of the public.
She represents the small person who took on the big system and succeeded, even if the State later won a appeal (on technical grounds) against the judgment which established the right of her autistic son, Mr Jamie Sinnot (24), to education on a continuing basis.
In the outcry that followed the appeal, the Government moved quickly to say it would not interfere with the settlement sum of €285,700 (£225,000) awarded in the High Court.
If the State won its appeal, the moral victory went to Ms Sinnot.
Her life is filled with her large family and the relentless effort to make the world Jamie inhabits more meaningful to him, more fruitful and more enjoyable. That alone demands constant effort.
Increasingly, she lectures and gives interviews on the lonely road she had to travel to get the State to recognise that Jamie had constitutional rights like everyone else and her life's work is now dedicated to helping others in the same predicament and to the foundation of a centre in Cork, to be called La Pilar, for people with developmental difficulties from birth.
What tempts her into politics is that she already knows many of the arcane workings in the corridors of power.
"I think I would make a brilliant TD because I've lived a lot in the political world for the past 20 years.
"What people are looking for and what they are not getting, is honesty and transparency. I know how civil servants work and I know how politicians work.
"I know how to get people moving and talking to each other and I know that if you're going to throw the kind of money they are now talking about, at the health system, you need someone like me to make sure it goes to people instead of being wasted and frittered away through bureaucracy and red tape.
"I would run, not because I want to, but because I think the time has come to do it. I don't go any place nowadays where I am not recognised by someone and everywhere I go, people are encouraging me to run for the Dáil.
"Whatever I take on, I see through to the end and I will make up my mind about this in two or three weeks time. In any event, I am already doing a lot of the work TD's do. People come to me about medical cards and to find out what their entitlements are.
"One of the great injustices, as far as I am concerned, is that the State stays silent about a whole range of entitlements.
"People have to go and find out for themselves that what they are looking for is theirs by right.
"When it comes to paying taxes, the taxman will know exactly who you are, but if you want a medical card, you have to push and shove and beg," Ms Sinnot said. Ms Sinnot believes the alliance of independents in the Dáil has been a powerful political force, and so what if they have brought parish-pump issues onto the floor of the House. "At the end of the day, it's about people, they are speaking on behalf of people who wouldn't have a voice without them, and that's what I am about as well. "I believe I could function very well as an independent.
"I know, of course, that being encouraged to run and getting the vote in, are two different things but there is a lot of goodwill out there for me and what I have stood for," she said. With the exception of €90,000 which is lodged in an account for her son's future needs, the High Court award of €285,700, including €69,000 of her own compensation, all of the money has or is being spent on Mr Sinnot's therapy and education. Every detail of his progress in therapy is meticulously plotted in daily ledgers.
He is a completely different person now to only a few years ago and can understand commands and play simple games. There has been a vast improvement in the quality of his life. Last year, four ledgers were filled with details of his progress.
This amounted to more paper work concerning his life than had been amassed since the day he was born in 1977.