JOHN BRUTON, the man who fortuitously became Taoiseach between elections, is surprisingly optimistic about the outcome of this campaign.
He believes he can change the political cycle to lead the first government to be reelected in almost 30 years. He was first elected a TD when that achievement was last accomplished in 1969 by Jack Lynch.
John Bruton loves being Taoiseach and, over the past 2 1/2 years leading a threeparty coalition, has found the top job "more rewarding and less threatening" that he had expected. He is proud also to have presided over the shortest, and most efficient Cabinet meetings "in recent history". They ran to one hour and 45 minutes once a week.
John Bruton is unwilling to offer his own assessment of what would make him a better Taoiseach than Bertie Ahern.
"I'm not going to make any comparisons with anybody else. I think it's for others to do that."
But, speaking for himself, he thinks it important to have ideas, to read widely outside the normal official publications, to discern the wider trends in society, to explain what is happening in - and to Ireland and to the Irish people on an ongoing basis.
Mr Bruton, once labelled by his opponents as "John, Unionist", doesn't despair about unionist intransigence. He did find it difficult, initially, to deal with Sinn Fein because his friend, Senator Billy Fox, had been murdered by the IRA.
He rules out both a referendum and legislation on abortion. He believes the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, might enter European Monetary Union "from the start or very early in the period". And, he does not think that Michael Lowry should be standing for the Dail.
Staking all now on the prospect of being elected Taoiseach by the people for the first time, Mr Bruton believes the essential difference between the two alternative coalitions on offer is that "one is a stable combination that can actually deliver what it says it's going to deliver. The other is profoundly unstable and unlikely to endure long enough to deliver anything substantial of the things it promises".
HE STANDS over the statement he made recently, some would say unwisely, that Fine Gael has no separate policy in government. He believes that statement in terms of the way a partnership government should work. That's not to say that the party will not have different positions coming to the table but these should not be a matter for public debate. The consensus building and decision making role of the Government is paramount over the debating role".
What, then, did Fine Gael achieve in government, other than being in power? The party's greatest achievement concerns jobs, he believes. When it left office in 1982, he was spokesman on Finance and produced a policy statement for the general election entitled The Jobs Economy. In the last general election in 1992, Fine Gael focused its manifesto exclusively on the same simple idea - to make it pay to take a job and to make it pay to make a job.
"This has been central to everything I've worked for and I'm very proud that since I've been Taoiseach we have added 120,000 to the number of people in work. Every week we've added 1,000 to the number of people at work at the beginning of the week. The fact that we've been able to manage a politically stable government which has made decisions in a businesslike way has created the environment in which all these jobs have been created. That's been, I think, the overriding input that we've had."
Responding to the Rainbow's failure to meet the spending targets set by Fine Gael in every year, Mr Bruton says they had towered the increase in public spending, despite having to meet carryover expenses which their predecessors didn't have to deal with, like the equality payments, the Army deafness claims, the compensation for hepatitis C and the claims under the Programme for Competitiveness and Work.
Referred to the speech he made, on entering government, that it would be his mission to consolidate the peace process aided by the good relationship he had established with the unionist community, he responds: "Well, personally, I think that building a bridge to the unionist community is essential to the need for fundamental peacemaking because without reconciliation between unionists and nationalists there won't be a lasting peace. Building such a bridge isn't an optional extra on top of building unity within the nationalist camp or unity within the unionist camp.
The Taoiseach acknowledges he did find it "initially difficult to deal with Sinn Fein for one reason only. A friend of mine, Senator Billy Fox, had been murdered by the IRA. When something like that happens you never forget it. On the other hand, I found very quickly that those hesitations were overcome. I found that the discussions I had with Sinn Fein were challenging, interesting and invariably polite. I felt that they did want to engage seriously. I felt that they were trying to struggle with the illogical legacy of their movement but I'm afraid only up to a point.
"I think that they hadn't brought their grassroots with them sufficiently in recognition of the logic of the peace process.
He believes that the Republican movement must have a fundamental reappraisal of the logic of the armed struggle.
"I recognise that that is exceptionally difficult because Irish nationalist ideology, which they have drawn on, is replete with the mythology of the blood sacrifice and the concept that British imperialism is responsible for all our ills. Both I think are inappropriate to present times and certainly inappropriate to a divided society like Northern Ireland. It is difficult for the republican movement to cast aside or come to terms with those assumptions. But I think they have been making an effort.
"I don't think that you actually do them a favour by lowering the hurdle or making it easier, or pretending that there's some semantic way of leaping over this difficulty. That it's all a question of just finding a formula of words. To an extent that may have been the problem with the earlier attempts at a peace process. There was an emphasis on formulae rather than on fundamentals."
REFERRING to the sudden decision to authorise the reopening of the official channel of communication with Sinn Fein last Saturday, Mr Bruton insists this meeting was organised in the context of existing policy which was set when the Government broke off routine contact with Sinn Fein.
The Government adopted the position, after Canary Wharf, that meetings could only take place between officials and Sinn Fein if there was a realistic prospect of an imminent ceasefire.
"I am adamant that a policy of `Safety First' is required to deal with an organisation which still associates itself with a continuing campaign of killing since Canary Wharf."
Has he despaired at times of unionist intransigence?
"I found it very difficult," he responds. The unionist community and its leadership doesn't recognise sufficiently he believes, the extent to which the majority opinion in the Republic wants no more than a fair accommodation between nationalists and unionists in Northern Ireland. They have found it possibly more difficult to cope with politicians and public opinion here that is going out of its way to understand them because they have erected a stereotype in their mind and it is unsettling when people from the Republic don't conform to the stereotype.
Mr Bruton also believes the unionist community must realise that it is dealing with a people in the Republic and, indeed, nationalists in Northern Ireland who understand in European terms that a blending of nationalities and allegiances in the same territory is normal.
Asked if he feels he has been let down by unionists, the Taoiseach states: "I haven't and I don't. I'm moderately hopeful that persistent efforts to get unionists to take a different view of their situation will reap results but I think we must recognise that patience is essential here. We're talking about ingrained attitudes that go back 300 years. They are not going to be changed in three years.
Is David Trimble the man to reach an accommodation with nationalists on this island?
"I think the jury is out on that question. David Trimble certainly has the intellectual capacity and energy to do something. The question is does he have the vision for the type of accommodation that's needed between the Irishness of the nationalists and the Britishness of the unionists?"
What would John Bruton say to those voters who may feel that Fianna Fail would handle the Northern problem better in government?
His priority in handling the Northern problem, he says has been to ensure that violence is contained so that politics can develop.
"I am very proud of the fact that I am the first and only Taoiseach ever to have obtained all party talks to which everyone, including Sinn Fein, was entitled to turn up. I created with John Major, not without difficulty, the mechanism that ultimately is the only one which can solve the problem. That mechanism did not exist at the time of the ceasefire and it did not exist when I became Taoiseach."
MR BRUTON thinks he has been able to take "a necessary and robust attitude" with the British government without being accused of doing so out of prejudice.
"I believe that it's fundamental that there can be no mixing of the democratic institutions of this State in any form of alliance, however tacit, with organisations that still retain the option of using illegal weapons. I have drawn the line on that very clearly. If we hadn't been as clear about the protection of the rule of law within our own jurisdiction against terrorists we wouldn't have carried the same conviction that came to upholding the rule of law in Drumcree against a large crowd that wanted to overwhelm their nationalist neighbours."
Turning to his attitude to abortion, Mr Bruton, rules out another referendum. He also indicates he has no intention of legislating for the X case judgment, making abortion lawful in certain circumstances.
He says he's against abortion and thinks the most important objective has to be to reduce the number and occasions when Irish women seek abortions abroad. The most effective way to reduce the rate of abortions, he believes, is by counselling and support for women so that they can take up the option of having their baby with the maximum support of the community.
"That is really, I think, the important antiabortion issue," he explains. I don't see the point of having another constitutional referendum because I cannot envisage a wording to which a Yes or No answer will be given. In any referendum, there has to be a Yes or No answer that would help to improve the situation or, in any sense, help to reduce the incidence of abortion. I don't have any time for the view that says that one is personally in favour of a referendum but doesn't know after that."
The attempts that had been made to have referendums in the past had made the situation worse and had, in his view, increased the incidence of abortion rather than reduced it, both because of the legal complications that had ensued and the publicity that the option had got.
Asked if we should legislate for the X judgment, Mr Bruton responds: "No. I don't because I think, in fact, that would have an opposite effect to the one that I wish to achieve. I don't think there is a case for that. I think the advocates on either side of this issue, those who are looking for a referendum and those who are looking for legislation, are both adopting a legalistic approach to a human issue. The human issue is saving lives as far as I'm concerned. It's not perfecting legal formulae."
Looking to the different thrusts of the two alternative coalitions' tax policy, the Taoiseach says the Rainbow target is to reduce the proportion of people's in come that is taken in tax. Most people only find that a tiny proportion of their total income is actually levied at the top rate. Some people, the very well off are levied at the top rate.
He maintains that if you concentrate only on rates, as Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats are doing, the benefits that you give will go disproportionately to those on high incomes. In some instances there will be no benefit at all to those on low incomes.
"The big disincentive to work exists for those on low incomes and, as I said, my guiding philosophy has been to make it pay to take a job, make it pay to create a job. Therefore, our tax policy will be geared to reducing the actual proportion, of tax paid by the average person. It's not just a tax policy for those who have accountants, it's a tax policy for everybody."
The Taoiseach is firmly committed now to EMU membership, with or with out Britain, despite the reservations he expressed, in opposition, in the early 1990s. He acknowledges, nonetheless, that it is going to be more difficult for us if Britain doesn't join.
"There is no doubt about that. The possibility of some shock to our economy coming is much greater if one of our principal trading partners is outside the Euro zone. It's a difficult choice but I think the right choice is to go into the Euro, regardless of what Britain does. Our greatest economic interest is with the mainland of Europe in the longer term."
He also believes that Ireland, as the only Englishspeaking country in the Euro zone, will have disproportionate advantages because the language of international finance is English.
"So while there are risks in going in without Britain, there are also possibly some compensating advantages if Britain doesn't go in and we do."
MR BRUTON, the first foreign leader to meet the new British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, is not totally pessimistic that Britain will stay out. "I think there is a possibility that Britain might go in earlier rather than later. The new British government has a more open view on the issue and I think that the objective economic interest of Britain will point in favour of an early rather than late decision."
By early, did he mean that Britain would be in from the start with the rest?
"Either that or very early in the new period, that's what I'm talking about. That is my assessment of what I think would be in Britain's interest. I'm not speaking from insider knowledge."
Why does he plan to feature a photograph of his wife, Finola, on his free post Litir an Toghachlin to 2.5 million voters?
Finola has stood beside him in all his political campaigns, he explains. She appeared in party political broadcasts in 1992. He first met her at a Fine Gael ardfheis in 1977 before she stood for election herself. She shared the Fine Gael ticket, in the local elections in 1979, with Michael McDowell and Joe Doyle.
"She has been my partner in politics as well as my wife," he says. "She stands beside me not behind me - in everything I do. That is her choice."
He thinks it equally reasonable for others to take a different view of their partners. Each person has to make their own decision. "I am very proud that my wife has taken public positions on public issues when she felt that this was appropriate and when she thought that some good could be done by it."
But, is he somehow implying that Bertie Ahern will be a lesser man by not having his wife beside him?
"The position is that my wife has been publicly associated in every way with everything I've been doing politically since we first met in 1977, since we married in 1981. There's nothing new with her being publicly involved in politics," he retorts.
And how does he feel now about Michael Lowry, who described John Bruton as "my friend, my best friend forever"?
HE THINKS the overwhelming majority of politicians in all parties have very high standards and that needed to be said at the outset of this campaign. "I think Michael Lowry has let himself down. I don't think he should be standing for the Dail. I ask the people of North Tipperary to vote for Tom Berkery and give their No 2s to Kathleen O'Meara. But, obviously, it's his decision."
Mr Bruton recites the formula answer to the apparent conflict in his evidence about Fine Gael fundraising practices to the beef and Dunnes payments tribunals.
He was dealing with two different periods, he states, and gave answers that were truthful, given in good faith, to the fullness of his knowledge at the different times.
If there is a hung Dail after the election, the Taoiseach doesn't exclude "making any arrangements, whatever necessary, to talk to other parties or individuals if that is what is necessary". Like all the other main party leaders in this campaign," he insists he will not need them.