Adi Roche appeared bright, bubbly and bouyant on RTE's Today with Pat Kenny yesterday, despite the controversy of recent days. She said there had been "an outpouring of concern and of love and support". People had been responding "on a human level to what is happening to another human being". The storm was over, it was time for the rainbow.
Asked why she had decided to accept the nomination of the Labour Party, Ms Roche pointed to the support of the public:
"I just had to listen to what people were saying to me, whether I was in the supermarket or driving along and stuck in a traffic jam and somebody knocks on the window saying, `You should go for the Presidency.' I began to let that percolate and process through, and in a sense I needed to listen to that. I responded to the people."
She wanted to be President, she said, because she felt she was a "good person" with "great experience". At 42 she was still in touch with the younger generation but could identify with the older generation. "There could be a little bit of a bridge there between the generations," she said.
When asked what she thought would happen to the Chernobyl Children's Project if she was successful in her presidential bid she replied, "The project is not one person.
"I think in a way this is my greatest tribute to the people who work for the project. . .I'm saying to them, `Guys you are more than capable of standing on your own two feet'. . .so I haven't any difficulty with that."
Commenting on the document printed in the Sunday Tribune, she said it was a "stream-of-consciousness-let-it-all-out kind of letter" which had been written at a point when the organisation was going through a period of transformation. It was written in her "tongue-in-cheek chatty style".
Asked whether she believed there was a grain of truth in her critics' allegations she said, "Of course there is, I'm a human being."
She was asked about the revelations concerning her brother Donal De Roiste's departure from the Army. "I was 14 at the time and I remember it and I remember all that went on within the family itself and the pain it brought too."
She said her political views were "deeply different" from her brother's. "I am a citizen of a republic, a democratic and hopefully pluralist republic . . . I am a strong advocate of the stories of Martin Luther King and Gandhi."
She said she saw no contradiction in being a Labour candidate although Mr Dick Spring had brought the country closer to NATO than anyone had before.
It was "barking up the wrong tree" to be moving towards a military alliance, she told Mr Kenny, but as President she would respect the "will of the people".
"A President has no right to make or to shake policy or law," she said.
She was in favour of divorce but was pro-life.
Should she become President, something would be done with the land around the Aras "in terms of theatre, drama and music". Aras an Uachtarain would be "the people's home" too.
When it was put to her that she was an emotional person prone to cry a lot, Ms Roche said, "Maybe the world needs a lot more tears." She would like to draw into the Presidency something "uniquely Irish - this spirit about life".
The candidates' spirituality was debated on Liveline yesterday. One male caller, David, thought it insulting the way Dana was constantly labelled a right-wing Christian.
A female caller wanted to know where Dana had got the idea of being President. Was it "over a cup of tea at the kitchen table?" she wondered.
"This country is hurting and hurting badly," David said. Adi Roche and Dana had women's hearts. They simply wanted to put their hearts "back into the country".