THE President, Mrs Robinson, has admitted there were difficulties between her and the Government on Northern Ireland.
In a wide ranging interview on the RTE Radio This Week programme, she spoke of healthy tension between a non executive president and a government with executive powers.
She said she had the support of the Government in seeking the United Nations post of High Commissioner for Human Rights, and she expressed her worry about the increased divisions between the "haves and have-nots" during the present period of economic progress.
Regarding her visits to Northern Ireland, she was asked about the "rage" expressed over her handshake with the Sinn Fein leader, Mr Gerry Adams, at a function in Belfast.
She said: "I was aware that it was really a very difficult decision. I had a number of invitations from six groups in Belfast who had expressed an incredible pain of isolation. It is hard now to follow how isolated that community was.
She was aware she would be speaking to Gerry Adams as one of about a hundred others when handshaking. "In a way it is a distortion to concentrate on the one hand, but, obviously that was the concern.
Had there been any question of her being asked by the Government not to go to Belfast she would have abided by that request because that was the constitutional position.
She had to make a judgment ash to whether what she was doing in the circumstances was appropriate. "You can never know definitively whether you have done the right thing but I did not regret the fact that I did it and it helped to bring a whole community out of an isolation into a sense of being valued, of being able to express themselves and having a very important story to tell that needed to be taken on board by all of us."
Asked about the criticism by the Tanaiste, Mr Spring, of her actions, Mrs Robinson said there were difficulties and probably always would be between a non executive president and a government with executive powers.
"It is a healthy tension at times and I don't see any problems provided on both sides there is a commitment to a good working relationship, which certainly I have experienced from successive governments."
In her visits to Northern Ireland, protocol had always been observed. She was met by a representative of the British government. What she was trying to do was to build up links of real friendship. There was now no voluntary organisation which did not have links with its opposite organisation in Northern Ireland.
"This is the strength of building up genuine friendship. I get a lot of feedback. My relationship is not with the political representatives in Northern Ireland but with communities and individuals whoa have very much welcomed what I have been doing."
Asked about her recent meeting with Pope John Paul she said she wanted to represent "inclusively a modern Ireland" including those of different religious faith and, none. She had a warm conversation with the Pope and told him about events he might not know about, including her visits to projects where she had been told they might never have succeeded but for the work of "the nun in the corner".
She said she had been "upset and distressed" about Mr Justice Rory O'Hanlon's criticism of her during the divorce referendum campaign. She had been "very scrupulous" not to say anything that would be inappropriate or comment on a change in the Constitution.
Regarding the selection of her successor she said: "It is not for me to say whether there will be an election or not but I know how much it helped me." She was greatly helped by the fact that she had gone out and sought support. There was a great strength in the link with the people "almost together deciding, this is the President they want."
Her interest in human rights arose from her "strong inner sense of justice" and she would welcome an opportunity to work in that field. She had spoken to the Taoiseach and the Tanaiste, who made it clear that the Government would support the possibility of her going forward for the post of High Commissioner for Human Rights. She greatly appreciated that support.
She believed there was an urgent need to address inequality. She was seriously worried about the widening divide during this period of economic progress. "You have people in jobs, sometimes two good jobs in one family, and in another street in another house where nobody has a job." That was creating a sense of division.