As we so often say on That Great Business Show, if you want something done ask someone who is already busy to do it.

As well as running his 20-year-old business, former Dublin Lord Mayor Gerry Breen is also secretary of the My Drumcondra business group and a board member of the Dublin City LEO. Though he has left politics behind, Breen gives his counsel freely to those looking for political solutions to local and national issues.

Breen, 64, owns and runs First Aid Supplies with his wife Maeve Breen, while daughter Niamh became a director last year. The Balbriggan venture is a leading supplier of first aid products and PPE to schools and workplaces. It stocks hundreds of first aid products and has c.4,000 customers. The business is a very solid SME, providing a good income for its owners, and Gerry Breen is very appreciative of his situation.

"It's a fantastic business," he says. "I have smashing staff and four reps on the road. I'm really privileged to have secured the business from a previous employer, Smith and Nephew, and I believe that anyone who works for themselves is lucky.

"I often say that some people go from the tyranny of school to the tyranny of employment to the tyranny of retirement. I don't pinch myself every morning. Businesses is relentless and demands a huge amount of you, but it also delivers great fun and energy.

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"You have to stay focused on the business, and the more focus you give it the more successful you'll be. You'll see what should be done, what can't be done, and what might be done. All the time you're iterating with the business to see whatís working and what's not working.

"I often think how clever the Covid strain is. It doesn't copy identically every time - it slightly mutates. That's what business should be doing, because all the time you are trying to anticipate the dangers and opportunities for your business, building up your capital reserve, and also your management capacity."

In his twenties, Breen felt the lure of politics and joined Fine Gael. In 1999 he was elected to Dublin City Council, representing Clontarf, and was elected Lord Mayor of Dublin in June 2010. He had two unsuccessful tilts at a D·il seat and left active politics after the 2014 local elections.

Gerry Breen was once a political insider, and though he has withdrawn from that system to run his successful SME, his views on what the public expects from our politicians are interesting, particularly as he blames some politicians for stoking those expectations.

"I think that politicians try to make out that the government, in the widest sense, should deliver everything," he remarks. "They can't. Even at the low level I was at in Dublin city council, you could see how inertia resists change. Government is good at regulation but it's not good at delivery. It's not that there are bad people in the public service. My point would be that if you are a public servant at local government level you're going to become very frustrated."

One of the issues concerning Breen at the moment is the Right to Request Remote Working Bill. As a business owner who understands the practicality of hiring and retaining staff, Breen points to a number of contradictions within the drafting, issues that could lead to SMEs having to spend time and money fighting labour relations claims.

Gerry Breen is a man who loves a good pun and a pithy saying. "A wise man once said to me, the first item on the agenda should be doing nothing," he remarks. "Unfortunately, sometimes Irish politicians - possibly because of the Irish public - have to be seen to be doing something."

That's what Breen feels has happened with remote working rights. With the workplace return post-Covid, he believes that politicians chose to be seen to be doing something that would allow employees to work from home, as many had done for the past two years, even if the employer felt this was inappropriate. A case of legislators knowing how to run a business better than the business owner.

Here's the rub, according to the former Lord Mayor. Employers in Ireland know that significant rights kick in after 52 weeks of employment. However, an employee under this proposed legislation could request remote working after 26 weeks. "I would urge the government to get out of the way and let businesses have their relationship with their workers. With a valued employee, employers will let them work from home or somewhere else as long as they're delivering the goods."

Gerry Breen would prefer that the remote working legislation withers on the vine. However, he doesn't want total inaction from legislators, particularly when it comes to another of his hot topics. According to Breen: "Entering Ireland's legal system is akin to going into a restaurant blindfolded and with no prices on the menu. And there are people sitting around eating food and you're paying the bill at the end of the day."

He cites the example of a friend who was charged with dangerous driving and had to attend court on about 20 occasions until the charge was dismissed. "At one stage the garda who did the technical assessment of the accident was on a secondment or a sabbatical in Australia. My pal incurred a huge amount of cost before being found innocent of the charge. I was frothing at the mouth for him."

Breen welcomes the government's progress on insurance claims reform. "Now they have to go into the next phase of hammering the insurance companies and driving premiums down," he adds. "That will be a solid piece of work delivered not just for employers and companies but also to the benefit of consumers."

Though out of active politics, Breen maintains community involvement through the Drumcondra networking group, which gathers once a month in the Skylon Hotel. "When you're of a certain age, it's very hard to learn new tricks," Breen admits. "I think it's critical to appreciate what you don't know and then access the information. You can get locked in a mental tunnel when you're working in a business, because it's so relentless."

Gerry Breen's top business tip? Simplicity. In his role on the evaluation board of his Local Enterprise Office for funding applications, Breen's mantra is KISS - keep it simple stupid. For example, don't mention a minimum viable product to Gerry. He just wants to know, in the simplest of language, what your business does and how it will succeed.

Applicants hiding behind language makes this entrepreneur worry that the applicant isn't confident in their own business. Worse, they could be hiding something. And since it's public monies he's handing out, Gerry Breen wouldn't like that.