Former Irish president Mary Robinson has said her decision to move to the United Nations before her term as president ended was "a mistake".

In an interview for RTÉ's Morning Ireland 'Hidden Gems' series with Cian McCormack, Mrs Robinson said it was a difficult decision not to be president for a second term.

She left the office of president in September 1997 to take up the role of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Her move to the UN happened, she said, because she allowed Kofi Annan, former secretary general of the United Nations, to "bully" her into the decision.

"I did want to be High Commissioner for Human Rights when I decided to step down. I then made the mistake, and that was a mistake, of allowing Kofi Anna to, sort of, bully me into coming earlier and not seeing out the last month-and-a-half, or whatever it was, of my presidency,” Mrs Robinson said.

Her impression, she said, is that people felt "she didn’t really like being president".

However, Mrs Robinson said this is not true.

"It was the hardest decision not to go for a second term. I knew myself that it would be very difficult to do it with the same utter 100% conviction for a whole seven years. I could do it for three or four and then the repetition would begin to be too much," she said.

"And I also felt, you know, I have opened up the office. It would be good to have an election and to have somebody else to come in and carrying forward. Mary McAleese did a very good job. I think Michael D Higgins is doing a very good job. I think the presidency is in a very good place and I am very pleased about that," she added.

Mrs Robinson now leads the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice, which is a centre highlighting global justice for vulnerable people impacted by climate change across the world.

"It’s true that because I am a grandmother that I do think a lot about 2050. My grandchildren will be in their 40s – the youngest won’t even be in his 40s – they’ll have at least half their lives to live. They’ll share the world with more than nine billion people," she said.

"Unless we are prepared to take some real steps now, how are they going to live in social harmony of any kind? How will they have enough food? How will they have enough water? We are at that point where we need to ensure that global greenhouse emissions that are causing climate change peak in 2020 globally.

"We’re not seeing it being enough of every countries approach at the highest political level," Mrs Robinson added.