How do I cope with it? I blank it out,” says Ivan Yates, talking about the fact he has all but lost Blackstoops – his homeplace – which has been in the Yates’ family name for four generations. Ivan went bankrupt in 2012 after the fall of his bookmaking business, Celtic Bookmakers. Blackstoops is not gone yet though, because Ivan’s mother has a life interest in the property – something that was provided for many years ago.

“There are other assets which will be sold first – property assets,” says Ivan.

“All my business assets are gone and the situation is that there are still ongoing negotiations. When you go bankrupt, everything you own is forfeit and when you’re discharged from bankruptcy, your debts evaporate,” he says.

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“I have lost all those assets that were mine, so, therefore, insofar as after my mother’s time, [the assets] would have come to me. Now they will not come to me, so all of that remains extremely difficult. I’m very realistic about it. But the situation is that if I could earn enough money to make an offer to buy it back, I will try. But to be realistic about it, that probably is not affordable.”

Despite all this, Ivan Yates is not a woe-is-me character. He’s a cheerful individual who focuses on the positives in his life. And there are plenty of them. His life is littered with achievements.

Ivan Yates took over the family farm as a teenager, was on his local urban council at the age of 18, elected to the Dáil by 21, named Minister for Agriculture by 35, and ran Celtic Bookmakers, which had 17 years of consecutive profits and growth. He now co-presents one of Ireland’s most-listened-to national radio programmes. And this is by no means an exhaustive list of his feats.

Back trouble

It’s Ivan’s attitude that impresses most. As he’s talking, he is sort of sitting sideways – lying, even – on the couch opposite. This is because two discs in his back are completely worn away (“They’re like marshmallows between your bones, they’re just liquid.”) as a result of sitting incorrectly in the car during long journeys opening betting shops in Ballina and Sligo.

“I was in acute pain, I let it go too far,” he says.

The damage done is irreversible. Surgery didn’t work and Ivan is now resigned to a fate of broadcasting from the floor of the studio in Newstalk or towering over his already terrified interviewees. But this doesn’t get him down either.

“If I avoid sitting, I overcome the problem,” he says.

He is a walking personification of “don’t sweat the small stuff – or the big stuff”. He has lost all his money and doesn’t have a contract for his job in Newstalk.

“Anyone anywhere can fire me any time – I’m quite happy.”

This may sound flippant, but this doesn’t mean everything he’s gone through hasn’t taken its toll. Ivan is on the record as stating that when he went to Wales to declare bankruptcy, on two occasions he wished he was dead.

How can he go from that to fronting a radio programme where he has to cheerfully wake up the nation?

“It’s a combination of guilt and self blame ... to some extent. If you’re not depressed then you don’t understand the situation,” he says.

“I suppose as time went by and as I jumped the various obstacles and won various court cases and dealt with the insolvency service, there was light at the end of the tunnel because there was the prospect of returning to my family and there was the prospect of earning money again.

“There are coping mechanisms like, you know, if I just endure this phase then you never know what might happen tomorrow.”

This is not to say his experience hasn’t left its scars.

“Since the age of 16, I’ve been working my guts out ... that I had sacrificed everything and for it all to turn to dust was pretty hard to take ... but you can’t have a pity party about it.

“I think you are definitely a wiser, sadder person, but I have found that ... happiness is actually about your relationships and the value of those, such as my marriage and my family and so on – it is a cliché ... simple little things can give me a lot more pleasure now.”

Political life

Ivan is certainly not pining for his old political life – the days when he shared an office with Enda Kenny. Did he expect the Taoiseach to go this far?

“He was never, in my experience, really into the depth of policy. I don’t think you could describe him as an intellectual ... he wasn’t that arsed ... he was out late at night, he never pushed himself forward ...”

The Taoiseach’s strengths, according to Ivan, are that he is a very good people person and he has a lot of genuine likability and personal charm.

“He has enormous staying power and energy to keep at what he’s been at for 40 years.”

He acknowledges that he has been an effective Taoiseach and gives his wife, Fionnuala Kenny, huge credit for making him ambitious and for refining and honing his political skills, using her experience from working for CJ Haughey.

“She is a truly formidable politician in her own right and I would say she is, without doubt, his closest and best adviser.”

One gripe Ivan has with politics today, compared to back in his heyday, is that there aren’t enough people to swim against the tide.

“I think we’ve far too much consensus in Irish politics. Today, everyone seems petrified to say anything that will upset anybody.”

Farming ambitions

Ivan would be more interested in going back to farming than politics. He says he’d love to be a gentleman farmer in his later years if he could, although he is under no illusions in terms of the romantic visions of farming.

“I enjoy farming. It’s a healthy way of life – not a very profitable way of life.”

He describes studying at Gurteen College as “the best year of my life” without a doubt and says that when he was Minister for Agriculture, “the civil servants in the Department of Agriculture felt I was a lot more a minister for farmers than I was a minister for agriculture”.

Ivan now gets his kicks in Newtalk, saying he lightens up the show (“news is usually so universally bad”) with “irreverent nonsense”.

“I do believe in my monopoly of wisdom – it can vary on topics and it can meander in different directions ...”

However, the listeners don’t always agree, notes Irish Country Living. Does he get offended by vicious texts sent into the show?

“I’m not sensitive, no. I don’t give a f**k.”

FULL ON

Ivan’s is not afraid to call it as it is, and on this point we ask him if he regrets being so honest in his book, Full On, where he all but says he cheated on his wife.

“That was the only downside of the book – that my family and my extended family had great difficulties with the book. I felt and would still feel it was my story ... in terms of their upset, my attitude was get over it. I was pretty robust about that too, and Deirdre supported me all the way.”

While Deirdre saw the manuscript before it went to print (and “cut out bits – good bits”) his children didn’t, and reacted negatively, he notes curtly. The book was their first exposure to certain information about their parents’ marriage.

In terms of whether his children have gotten over it, he says they don’t discuss it.

“There were things they weren’t aware of in the book and they didn’t like them, but sure that’s life.”

Ivan is not in the least bit mellow when it comes to his convictions but for a person who has been through so much, he has a remarkably mellow streak.

On getting older, he says: “You lose your hair, you lose your mind, you lose your teeth, you lose everything ... but what you actually get with maturity is a kind of resilience and a kind of mellowness that means that nothing gets to you. You can say, kind of: ‘Yeah, I’ve seen all this, heard all that and I’m not panicking about this any more’, so therefore the space I’m in is a much happier place.”

Buy the book. It’s genuinely a great read.