Mr. John Bruton:

Actually, I did overlap as Taoiseach with Tony Blair, admittedly very briefly, for something like six weeks. The situations for the two leaders were quite different. John Major was down in the trenches fighting for survival and did not have the same degree of manoeuvrability that Tony Blair had. I think he was a very sincere man, as was Tony Blair, but I never had to do any hard negotiating with Tony Blair. My successor, Bertie Ahern, did that.