John Deasy, the special Irish government envoy working for the undocumented Irish in the U.S., and his wife, RTE presenter Maura Derrane, are having “a hard struggle” with their home life as they pursue individual careers.

That’s the word of his wife as she prepares to return from a summer break to resume the afternoon Today program on RTE TV alongside co-host Daithi O’Se.

Derrane, 47, told TV Now magazine. how as a career minded couple with high profile jobs, juggling work and home is par for the course.

“It’s a hard struggle but these days nobody has the luxury of just going around the corner to their job,” Derrane said.

“John and I are both very career orientated and we both have jobs that are quite high profile and they are not jobs you can just wander in and out of.”

She said that under the Trump regime scaremongering for the fate of undocumented Irish citizens is rife.

“There is a load of scaremongering out there, but there are a lot less people than John thought who are undocumented so it’ll be an easier problem to handle long term hopefully,” Derrane said.

“He’s really happy about his new job, which suits him down to the ground. He worked on Capitol Hill for seven years and the undocumented Irish is a big issue.

“John lived in the states himself; he knows what it’s like to be there as an Irish person looking for work so he gets the whole situation, he’s certainly the right person for the job.”