Interview with Philip Crowley.
Occupation: General practitioner in Mountjoy Street, Dublin; project director, General Practice Health Inequalities Project, Irish College of General Practitioners; and public health doctor with the Institute of Public Health in Ireland.
Personal and family: Married to Emma Curtis, and is father of Fionn and Niamh.
What figure from the world of health/medicine do you most admire?
All the community activists with whom I have worked in Nicaragua, Newcastle and Dublin who often work without pay - and with little recognition either.
What alternative career might you have chosen?
I did work as a community development worker for many years.
If you were appointed Minister for Health, what would be your first priority?
Make the health service more fair - by increasing significantly the financial cut-off for access to GMS medical cards and by removing private care from public hospitals, creating a single and equal waiting list for all people for all hospital services.
Do you have a phobia/what is your greatest fear?
I am afraid of letting people down and of roller coasters - until a recent trip to Florida.
Have you ever been a patient and were you a good one?
I have been an occasional patient and quite a poor one, really.
What three books would you bring to a desert island?
10 Quick Ways to Get Off a Desert Island (I am sure there is a book of that name?), A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry and One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey.
Have you a fail-safe method of dealing with stress?
No, does anybody? I try sport of any sort.
What is your favourite TV or radio programme?
Match of the Day, Seinfeld and Black Books.
If you did not live in Ireland, where would you choose to spend the rest of your life?
I have lived in a number of other places and have plumped for Ireland after all of them.
Summarise yourself in 12 words?
I'll leave that to others - although God knows what they would say!
Do you use alternative medicine/therapies?
I have tried aromatherapy to very good effect.
Who or what makes you laugh?
My friends, my family and Black Books.