Channel 4 presents videos of the evidence (www. channel4. com/news /microsites/I/the_iraq_commission /witnesses. html).

Why invite an Irish businessman?

As an Ulsterman, they assume my loyalty, but I'm a citizen, not a subject. Suspecting Blair is being set up, I focus on business facts. They seem delighted by my frank comments. Lord King is a shrewd chairman. The titled former diplomat and ex-director general of MI5 are rapier sharp.

I marvel at the penetrating intelligence and candour of the British elite. Like them or not, they know how to manage 'natives' (including us) and have detailed experience running an empire in challenging circumstances.

You can see why Britain maintains a permanent seat on the UN security council. They've ample skill and understanding but poorly translate those assets into results.

Many have a low opinion of business people but we get things done. By contrast, they arrive at conclusions they feel are just and then try to justify them. We experiment until we "nd something that works. We'd rather deal with saints. But prosperity is better than poverty and money solves most problems.

We offer solutions . . . they dodge blame.

14 June: Dail Eireann FRESH from exposure to imperial London, I appreciate the experience of Irish democracy. You can't take independence, peace and prosperity for granted. It was a textured, enthusiastic and very Irish gathering: ordinary and extraordinary at the same time.

There was careful security but with a light hand. I had a 'George Bush moment' when my badge appeared to blow off in the wind.

Porters have an uncanny memory for names and faces . . . even remembering a previous mention in this column!

It's a real festival of democracy. I am grateful for those who worked for Irish freedom, but when meeting Gerry Adams MP I am also resentful that elected representatives of my home city cannot address the national parliament as a right.

There is general relief at continuity . . . why change a successful formula?

Many business people fear the Greens. But they've long outgrown the bearded stereotypes: Eamon Ryan will make a good energy minister. He studies issues like peak oil as thoroughly as any politician. It will be hard for him to approach nuclear energy with an open mind, but that is true of any Irish politician.

The body language said it all: Enda and Pat looked dejected. Brian Lenihan floated into the chamber on air. The highlight was Jackie Healy Rae slagging constituency rival John O'Donoghue about potholes. Only the ceann comhairle kept a straight face.

Analysis speaks to your mind. But the critical skill is communication.

Laughter wins every time. True genius marries both.

18 June: Atlanta airport I AM checking emails when I get a text telling me to watch RTE; live on the website is George Lee's Fu tu re Shock, including my own interview on peak oil last February. Sadly the connection breaks . . . some would pay good money for such a feature. . .

There'll never be a commodity as rich, variable and chemically stable as petroleum. It's dense energy, refinable into many long shelf-life products meeting many needs inexpensively.

If you plot output of conventional, onshore cheap oil it's clear that production has already peaked. But high prices and technology allow us to maintain a jagged plateau . . . there is no precipitous decline. The same is true of medium-cost oil from the shallow offshore.

All of our increased demand is served by going ever deeper into the offshore, by drilling deeper into the earth's crust and converting gas and biomass to synthetic fuels.

If we were exclusively dependent on cheap, onshore oil, we would now be in serious trouble. Higher prices and improved technology are helping us to adapt. This buys us time to solve the problem. But all fossil fuels are finite.

Peak oil prophet Colin Campbell was dismissed as a crank. But Campbell says what we've always known: find the easiest oil first.

Reservoirs produce at peak and steadily decline. Only a minority of oil can be squeezed out of rocks. If that's true for a single field, it must be true for the world. It's the detail we're arguing about. The industry was slow to answer, but generally has absorbed the idea . . . correcting its exaggeration while pretending it never disagreed.

The Malthusians are too pessimistic, just as Cornucopians are Panglossian: the scare and high prices come just in time . . . together with global warming fears . . . to head off disaster.

Firstly, there are unconventional hydrocarbons: Venezuela's heavy crude equals Saudi Arabia's proven conventional oil reserves. There are also Canadian tar sands, currently stranded gas and shale.

One benefit of the scaremongering is the current 'renewables' buzz. Throwing cash at marginal projects leads to overbidding and investor losses. But society bene"ts from new technology and diversi"cation of fuel sources. Renewables make no economic sense unless subsidised by taxpayers. Governments may provide a utility-type rate of return, but not provide bonanza returns.

Nuclear works economically but is politically radioactive.

Modern society is less energyintensive per unit of output than the 1970s, but overall consumption per capita is higher and growing. Energy is complex and works in non-intuitive ways. You do something for good motives which hurts you indirectly.

Most energy is absorbed ordering energy itself: find, extract, refine, process and distribute.

There's ample energy in the universe. What we use is ordered energy. Sophisticated machines use more, not less, energy. Might and prosperity are driven by power.

Societies that improve energy supplies overwhelm those that don't.

En route to the pub from a UCD debate, John Gormley told me we must rethink the assumption of economic growth. "Jaysus, John, don't let your constituents hear that, " I thought, "or we'll be stuck with Michael McDowell in perpetuity."

People won't vote for or adopt policies that restrict their use of energy . . . for example, by requiring them to switch devices off. Energy demand is insatiable. We explore, take risks, crave more. Energy is the solution, not the problem.

The more efficient the technology, the greater the energy demand: we do more faster, safer and better. New applications appear faster than traditional uses are superseded. The industry must provide reliable and cheap energy. That means nuclear.