'You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em." Kenny Rogers's song The Gambler epitomises the past, present and persona of Charlie McCreevy. His first gamble - to fight the 1977 election for Fianna Fáil in his home county of Kildare - cut short a promising career in chartered accountancy. It paid off and McCreevy entered the Dáil at just 28 years of age.

Two years later, the stakes rose when Charlie Haughey ousted Jack Lynch as party leader and as taoiseach. McCreevy backed the challenger - a brave move for a new TD - and ended up on the winning side.

In 1982, the beginner's luck ran out. McCreevy overplayed his hand in single-handedly putting down a motion of no-confidence in Haughey, his former idol. He lost and lost big, and spent a decade in exile on the Fianna Fáil backbenches. Albert Reynolds made him social welfare minister in 1992 and he implemented an unpopular set of social welfare cuts known as the "dirty dozen".

Some five years later, he began a seven-year stint as finance minister, presiding over most of the Celtic Tiger era as well as over burgeoning State coffers, which he used to cut taxation.

Last year, he was appointed to the EU Commission by Bertie Ahern. After a successful Irish presidency of the EU Council, Ahern could have taken the presidency of the commission, but he appointed McCreevy to the commission instead. McCreevy, according to some, was unhappy at the move and wanted to stay in Ireland. Allegedly, Ahern wanted him gone: perhaps the man who runs the casino of Irish politics thought that McCreevy was just winning too many hands for comfort.

Now McCreevy is in Brussels. Here the stakes are higher, the rules more complex. Last week, for example, his directorate published a green paper on barriers preventing EU citizens benefiting from cross-border mortgages.

The size of the EU mortgage market is estimated at around €4 trillion. The number of stakeholders is huge and includes thousands of financial institutions across the EU, represented by lobbyists who work the levers of EU parliament. This helps to explain the slower, more subtle nature of the Belgian game.

McCreevy must adapt his game from the quick hand poker he played in Fianna Fáil, but he has learned to describe the procedures of Brussels without a trace of impatience: "In November, we'll have a hearing, bring all the stakeholders together and then after all that, we'll decide what we're going to do."

But even the best poker player can let slip what he's really thinking. For instance, on this question of regulating the mortgage market, he poses the question: "Would we by interfering in this kind of market make matters worse with more regulation?"

Were he one of those sophisticated commissioners who graduated from an Ecole d'Administration, he would have used the word "intervene" rather than "interfere".

But such a man might also have less rigour and drive. If McCreevy's style is rugged for Brussels, it is refreshing. "The obstacles identified by the expert group will be dealt with in a cost-benefit analysis of the proposal," he says. And he will only act if the case is proven.

McCreevy is thus prepared to admit that in some areas, Brussels may not have all the answers.

One of the obstacles identified to a harmonised market for mortgage lending is the lack of information on the part of lenders about mortgage borrowers in other EU states. "In theory, it's a wide market and someone in Denmark can decide at the click of the internet to have his mortgage from Dublin or from London or Luxembourg, but there are all types of obstacles there."

This initiative is part of a broad reform - the Financial Services Action Plan (FSAP) - embracing wholesale, as well as retail markets for financial services. The FSAP includes the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MIFID), which aims to remove regulatory barriers to trade in financial instruments.

The chairman of the Financial Services Authority in the UK last week criticised this proposal as lumbering business with large adjustment costs.

But McCreevy responds robustly. "Everything we're going to produce by way of regulation will have to stand up to the following test: Is there going to be significant economic benefit? If not, then I'm not going to burden business with a whole raft of regulation." Here, McCreevy states with conviction that what is good for business is good for Europe.

When talking about the EU services directive, McCreevy's tone changes slightly. This directive proposes to let businesses sell services in other EU states, without having to adapt to their labour legislation or regulatory regimes.

According to McCreevy, the directive will stimulate a sector that accounts for 70 per cent of the EU economy. "The reason behind the directive is to unleash the potential of the services sector and break down the barriers to its operation."

The directive has many critics, who say that it will cause a "race to the bottom" and give an unbeatable advantage to low-cost accession states. Although due for ratification last March, the directive was postponed in the face of stiff opposition in an effort to pacify a hostile French electorate in advance of the referendum on the draft EU constitution. Work has now resumed on the directive.

McCreevy is strongly supportive of the directive, but stoic about its slow progress. The rapporteur of the EU parliament, Eveline Gephardt, has since produced a report putting over 1,100 amendments to it.

The lead committee considering the report - the Internal Market and Consumer committee - will debate these amendments and vote on these in September, and depending on that it will go to a first vote in the European parliament in October. Those dates are subject to change.

McCreevy notes, with some approval, that this kind of procedure is more inclusive and multilateral than might have applied some years ago. He hopes that the directive will retain its original thrust, but accepts that the directive "will not happen" in its original form.

Here, McCreevy is not afraid to say that he regards the labyrinthine procedures of Brussels as an obstacle to progress in Europe. He is also prepared to acknowledge a certain camaraderie with co-commissioner Peter Mandelson, whose New Labour reformist attitudes are in tune with his own.

But relations with other commissioners are good and he rejects the view, expressed by some, that envy was behind the decision of his Dutch colleague Nellie Kroes to prevent the Government from granting further State aid to Intel earlier this year. Nonetheless he notes the challenges faced by some EU states.

"We've succeeded in Ireland because we've changed. But change is hard for many people to accept."

In 2009, McCreevy's terms as commissioner will be up and he will still only be 60 by then. But he will not return to politics. The priorities of a still young family and the existence of lucrative and less risky attractions will take priority.

"You've got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away and know when to run," as the song goes.