That politician of a different era, Galway's Mark Killilea, referred once to Fianna Fail people as the "the plain people of Ireland".

He was asked who he thought these people actually were and he unforgettably described them as being those "who ate their dinner in the middle of the day".

It was a fair description bringing up images of sober-suited, porter-bellied civil servants in the dining rooms of Dublin hotels, served by proper waitresses, who wore uniforms and knew from which side to serve the gravy.

Or unshaven, gaunt farmers sitting down opposite their attentive wives in farmhouses around Old Ireland, getting ready to tuck into a hearty dinner of hairy bacon, overcooked cabbage and floury spuds.

In those days, Ireland had set meal times, with dinner at one o'clock, following up on a boiled egg breakfast at some unearthly early hour.

Tea was at six o'clock and adults did not have lunch. Lunch, it those "dinner-in-the middle- of- the-day" days was the two slices of bread, stuck together with jam that the kids brought to school with them, if they were lucky.

If that was the case then, it is most certainly not the case now, if a survey just published is to be believed.

Apparently, the pressure of work now means that the much-put-upon "plain people of Ireland" are only managing to take an average of 38 minutes for lunch, with more than one in three of us unable to take even a full hour for lunch due to our workloads.

It would seem then, that there are few plain people left in Ireland, and therefore few Fianna Fail supporters.

Mind you, we are still better off than our British cousins, who only have a 28-minute break on average.

The story behind these statistics fascinates me and certainly seems to give a whole new meaning to the term, "fast food diet".

Why do we take an extra ten minutes more than the British to eat our lunches? Do we eat different things than they do? Do we eat more slowly or is it just that we talk more than them while we are partaking of our midday repast?

Or perhaps it's that sly, after lunch fag that we smoke.

After all, we have to walk outside whatever smoke-free pub or café we choose to have a puff whereas our English counterparts at the coalface of life can still enjoy their cigarette at the table ... for the moment, anyhow.

And images of Coronation Street-style lunch-hours do little to verify the survey's results either. Gaggles of girls gathering around a table in the Rover's Return, fresh from a morning's slavery at Baldwin's knickers factory, never seem to be in any rush to return to their machines.

"Hurry up, girls, we've only got two point five minutes left before clock-in time!" is not a phrase we are likely to hear from Janice's ample mouth, as she savours Betty's Hotpot over a pint of ale.

Quite what this speed eating is doing to our digestive systems is not documented in this survey either. Neither is it clear what exactly we are masticating and swallowing during that hectic 38 minutes.

The report says that our lunches are getting healthier and that sandwiches and baguettes are still favourite lunchtime eats for us. So where are we getting our recommended daily portions of fruit and veggies then?

Mark Killilea's real man obviously got two of the required daily portions with his midday dinner, plus a healthy amount of his protein needs, by leisurely eating his standard "meat-and-two-vegetables" dinner at one o'clock on the dot.

He also did not give himself indigestion or develop ulcers as he remembered his mother's advice that each mouthful should be chewed at least 32 times. He even afforded himself the luxury of putting a dollop of full-fat creamery butter on his spuds to help them down his gullet.

Our Italian paninis and French sticks don't offer anything other than keeping within our time limit, unless we carefully choose the fillings.

It is doubtful that this is done, given that we only have 38 minutes to stuff the damn thing in our mouths in the first place.

We don't want to fill good chewing time on choosing good fillings, do we?

No, indeed, we much rather grabbing the most exotic sounding eats we can spot at the delicatessen counter, eat it as quick as we can and wash it down with a mocha, latte or cappuccino. And where does all leave us in the obesity stakes and healthy eating habits charts? Surely to goodness we can't be as fat as we are alleged to be as a nation when all we can afford is 38 minutes eating time during our working day?