Has she hit the bottle, taken to the bed, writing her explosive memoirs? Why won't she come on the radio and share her deepest thoughts on the ritual humiliation of losing her seat?

After 15 years of having a view on everything from the role of women in politics to the economics of overseas aid . . . and occasional swipes at the hierarchy . . . has she no interest in coming on to review the papers?

Sorry lads, I have neither taken to the drink nor the bed. I'm just living life like all you guys who never had the privilege or pain of running the country. If this sounds flippant, well, there it is.

It's not that losing your seat is not upsetting.

It's up there with drunk texting your ex and having a night of shame at the vicar's party when it comes to mortification. But like all heartbreak, it does ease, and before long there is a glimpse of a fresh start and a healthy revision of the old life, which despite its pleasures and privileges, had many downsides.

Gone are the sleepless nights fretting about an early call from Morning Irelandwhen interviews were often, I can now reveal, done in my underwear, contrary to the professional impression that I was sitting at my desk in a black suit.

Hell, the same can be said for most of the listeners, if they weren't putting on their makeup in the traffic. Gone too is that oppressive sense of responsibility for everything that happened in the country, the delayed diagnosis, the escaped prisoner, the most recent misdemeanour of any Fianna Failer, be it verbal or financial. There is also the bonus of being liberated from listening to every news bulletin, the tyranny of the Sunday papers, and juggling residents' meetings with Dail votes. I could go on but I only have 860 words, as my fellow dog lover Nuala O'Faolain is on leave and I'm just a stand-in. Mind you, I feel a special identification with her novel Are you Somebody? at this particular junction in my life.

Frankly, this writer would have struggled less with the blank screen if the political editor had asked for a piece on something specific. "Write on any topic you fancy" was the open-ended edict. It doesn't have to be political, he coaxed, anticipating a polite 'no' coming on from the former deputy who wishes to cast off her former persona. It won't be easy. After 15 years of being po-faced and, frankly, doing my job, it's like having a facelift and revealing another person or at least another side to the person thousands of people knew.

When you are a TD, you are in a way owned by the public. They pay your wages and you are constantly being judged on your utterances.

Being a senior female politician and deputy leader of a party in government, there was an expectation of gravitas, and I had it in spades.

Any flippant remark was frowned upon. Any controversial comment, however principled, was seized upon, freeze-framed and logged on my record.

Over the years, through a process of selective compiling of various utterances I made in the Dail or elsewhere, a character is formed in the public mind, which can be incomplete. This is true not just of this former TD, but of many. The real character is usually quite different. Only the people we know personally as constituents, friends or colleagues know the real nature of our work and our worth. I say this out of loyalty and empathy to my former colleagues of all parties, who in the main are in politics to do good and serve the public. Their work is done in an increasingly hostile and cynical environment.

People say it's thankless, but practitioners know different and so do the people we assist.

So, you ask, what is it really like to be booted out of office, having been a minister and deputy leader of a small but perfectly formed party in government for 10 years? It sucks on the day, when you see the crestfallen party workers and supporters who had given up six weeks of their lives to knock on angry doors in the middle of a nurses' strike to ask people to vote for their candidate. It's a devastation to see your leader lose his seat, his office and his dignity to the taunts of ignorant people; to watch it on TV from home was unreal, like an out-of-body experience. To phone colleagues as they went down like skittles was traumatic and painful. To think of secretaries and staff who were losing their jobs; of Des, Bobby and Mary and how it had all come to this. But nobody died and life goes on.