Dick Spring's parting shot in the direction of his new presidential nominee on Tuesday was smiling and succinct. "No drinking. And early nights," he warned, upon which a small forest of raised eyebrows caused him to add in mock bewilderment: "It's just for six weeks."
To strangers in the RHA Gallery in Dublin who might have mistaken Adi Roche for a cross between Matt Talbot and Mother Teresa, the leader's admonition must have been startling. To her friends, it probably sounded like sensible advice, though hardly necessary.
"Listen," said a corporate donor, "the Chernobyl Children's Project didn't become the powerful organisation it is today because Adi Roche lacks commitment or energy or consistency."
At 42 (and the youngest of the candidates) her stamina is the stuff of legend. Anyone who has made the trip to Belarus in her company has returned with an image of a driven woman, working a mobile phone in truly grotty hotel rooms, still making and taking calls close to midnight, listening, negotiating, patiently resolving maddeningly complex problems, planning the following day's schedule so not a moment is wasted.
Yet she will be the first out of bed next morning, shiny blond hair, bright smile, elegant separates and utterly impractical high heels in place, ready to pick her way through icy streets to outwit the bureaucrat from hell; discuss new research with a nuclear physicist; review children's medical needs with hospital doctors; have lunch with diplomatic contacts; visit Chernobyl-affected families in outlying tenements.
It is a long way from the one-dimensional, hyper-talkative, brown rice and sandals image of Adi Roche that appeared to be evolving this week; an image not helped by the cacophony of caring-sharing rhetoric issuing from all the presidential candidates and already provoking a backlash from bored media commentators deprived of prime political "meat" after the abandonment of Albert Reynolds. "I think I should get a sticker that says `Why not a man?'," said one young man, tongue in cheek.
It was a week that began with high hopes and huge enthusiasm as Roche and her husband, Sean Dunne, made the journey from Cork to Dublin for the announcement on Tuesday. Her address to the Labour council beforehand was, according to a source, a model of political wisdom and sensitivity.
By midday on Wednesday, with the nomination secure, she was already into her ninth local radio interview, a blitz that continued with press interviews over lunch and then in the afternoon she took time out to look for presidential-style clothes. Although she refused to be rattled by Mary McAleese's nomination, it gave pause to some in Labour HQ. But they recovered. "She's the first Fianna Fail candidate in respect of whom headquarters will have to send out a CV to its own membership," said one. Their candidate by comparison begins with the inestimable benefit of over 70 organised Project groups around the State, with the tentacles of 900 families reaching deep into the hearts and minds of Ireland's broadest constituency.
On Thursday Roche's diary - by now being organised by Anne Byrne, Labour's development officer - was developing a crowded look. Any hope that she and Sean might get home for the weekend was gone. Sean, an ex-seminarian with his primary degree in music who is on special leave from his teaching post at the Christian Brothers College in Cork city, is her touchstone.
The other person on whom she relies heavily is Ali Hewson, patron of the Project and famously the wife of U2's Bono. She is her closest friend and provider of the couple's safe haven while in Dublin. She is a discreet, grounded influence. But there are others around whom her campaign will revolve.
Eoin Dinan, a Project director, former taxi-driver and quiet, supportive presence, is acting as her driver and personal support. Joe Noonan, a poker-faced Cork solicitor, veteran of the Crotty legal challenge to the SEA and friend of 15 years, is on hand for legal expertise.
Helen Faughnan (currently away in the US), an able senior civil servant and former private secretary of several government ministers, is on special leave from the Civil Service to work with the Project. She lives in the Roche/Dunne household while in Cork and could be the Bride Rosney of a Roche presidency.
Don Mullen, author of the recent groundbreaking book on Derry's Bloody Sunday, an ex-seminarian and a founder and director of AfRI - a body creating links between Ireland and the Third World - is on the team. So is Carol Fox, a former chairwoman of CND with foreign policy expertise. Maura Ahern, Sean's sister, will travel the country with the candidate, producing homeopathic remedies and dietary advice.
In a tightly negotiated deal with the political coalition that nominated her, a committee of 12 will run the campaign. This will comprise three teams of four - one from the Roche camp, the second from Labour and the third from DL and the Greens combined - and all decisions will require consensus.
Adi Roche's team will be Carol Fox, Eoin Dinan, Don Mullen and Joe Noonan. The Labour team will include Ruairi Quinn, general secretary Ray Kavanagh, Senator Pat Magner and international secretary James Wrynn. For DL and the Greens, there will be Eamon Gilmore, Tony Heffernan, Trevor Sargent and Patricia McKenna.
Meanwhile, a pattern has developed in the questions being thrown at her. Lack of political background? "I would consider that to be my greatest advantage. It is imperative that the Presidency is above and beyond politics." She defies pigeon-holing, she believes, and insists on her freethinking independence despite Labour's backing.
She enjoys a friendship with Bertie Ahern and has been guest of honour at Fianna Fail's annual dinner, but is also a good friend of Fine Gael's Hugh Coveney and has been approached by both parties to be a Dail candidate.
A lack of legal expertise? "I would like to prove that you don't have to be a constitutional lawyer to become president of Ireland. . .I would of course have the expertise, advice and support of the Council of State."
A single-issue campaigner? "Chernobyl is not a single-issue campaign. It has a strong depth of ethical value. It has links with the economy, with land, with a whole race of people and that throws up many different, complex issues. But I also have a weight of many years as a full-time volunteer and national organiser with the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, of running peace and justice education programmes in schools and of involvement in many different campaigns."
She has canvassed in general and European elections for Green and independent candidates, campaigned against the abortion amendment, against the Single European Act and against the Criminal Justice Bill.
Abortion? "This must be considered within the confines of the presidential role. I would be in the position of implementing the will of the people - and that neutrality must be maintained on every single issue."
The subject of children is personally painful for her. She and Sean have no children; in the 1970s she suffered several pregnancies that failed to come to term. Later, having made the commitment to the Chernobyl project, she decided that she could not "in conscience" bring other children into the world.
Tact? Diplomacy? The ability to hold her own? Tact and diplomacy were always her most successful tools in relation to getting aid into Belarus against formidable practical and political hurdles. Overuse of huggie-feelie language by the women candidates? "So four women have a language that is compassionate, that is about caring, and the word `love' may have been used. . .But that is real language and real feeling and maybe that's what is needed now - provided of course that it's natural and not contrived."
Meanwhile, although she earnestly hopes for a dignified campaign, she knows there are tough times ahead. Last Monday she asked her parents to stop reading the newspapers: "They're very protective of me and would find some of the writing too hurtful."
Both she and those around her know that the backlash will get worse. In the coming days she will be required to assess herself and her style as never before. She will not be funnelled into Robinsonesque suits or force-fed more "manly" lines; nor would she tolerate it if someone tried.
She needs, she emphasises, to speak from the heart. But no one, it seems, wants to reinvent Adi Roche and make her less of the warm, passionately committed woman that made her such an attractive candidate to begin with. "What we will try to do is bring out the whole of her, so that she will be seen in all her dimensions," said a campaigner.
This, decoded, probably means less emphasis on the caring-sharing aspect and more on a concrete sense of what she can do with the job. She will probably rein in her speaking style, become "a little more presidential", as another of the team put it, come to "use a few less words in every sentence, a few less sentences in every reply".
It is just a week after all since she decided to accept the nomination, a tiny fraction of the time given her rivals to put flesh on the bones of campaigning ideals. She will have time to consider those between now and nomination day. After that, let the games begin.
It is then that Adi Roche will come into her own.