A WOMAN rang Joe Duffy’s Liveline last Thursday afternoon. She was less than impressed at Bertie Ahern’s interview with Bryan Dobson on RTE’s Six One News earlier in the week. She had good reason to be unimpressed.
The woman recalled that she had become a separated parent in 1993 - the same year that the Taoiseach’s martial difficulties were reaching their nadir. Like Bertie Ahern she found it extremely difficult to cope with the financial costs of a legal separation. In fact, she and her children ended up renting a two-bedroom cottage that did not even have running water as she could afford nothing better.
The woman noted that she would have loved to have been in a position to get a £50,000 whiparound from rich friends. But even if she had been able to rely on the generosity of friends or family she could not countenance taking the money. Why? Well, it was nothing to do with the sort of ethical guidelines that should have occupied the mind of Bertie Ahern as Minister for Finance. It was much more prosaic than that. The woman knew that were she in receipt of a cash injection from family or friends she would immediately be leaving herself open to the loss of her social welfare payments, medical card and future college grants. It was a risk she could not possibly take.
And, so, like many other separated parents in the early 1990s, she soldiered on as best she could, never thinking that one of the highest paid public servants in the land was getting hand-outs from wealthy acquaintances at home and abroad. No wonder there was a hint of bitterness in her voice when she spoke to Joe Duffy.
But there are a number of aspects of Bertie Ahern’s political implosion that leave a rather bitter taste in the mouth. The first is that Bertie Ahern has been exposed as a charlatan - a so-called champion of the common man whose private finances were anything but common.
Anyone who remembers as far back as 1993 will recall that £70,000 was a fair amount of money. You would have bought a decent house in Dublin with that sort of cash in the early 1990s. A person earning £70,000 back then was doing alright. Bertie Ahern was earning £70,000 back then.
The simple truth of the matter is that he should not have needed cash whip-arounds in 1993 and 1994. What was he doing with his money? He had been a Government Minister for the previous seven years, driving around in a State car and rarely paying for a meal or a drink. Surely he could get by on £70,000 per annum. After all, some of his constituents had to make do with £7,000 a year or less.
What we now know is that Bertie Ahern’s public image as the ordinary bloke from down the road was nothing more than a mirage. It was a carefully and cynically constructed chimera that was designed to advance his political career --nothing more and nothing less. The guy down the road doesn’t have friends that can provide him with £50,000 in cash on Christmas week. And even if he does he has a bit more class than to go knocking on their doors with a begging bowl.
But it is not just Bertie’s ‘Man of the People’ routine that has taken a battering during the last seven days. Here was a man who passed himself off as a paragon of virtue in a sea of political corruption. Ivor Callely was booted out of office because he got a free paint-job. Ned O’Keeffe walked the plank for possessing conflicting business interests. Hugh Coveney was condemned for making a telephone call to a business acquaintance. The old adage about what is good for the goose and the gander springs to mind.
Yet Bertie himself continues to hold office this morning after receiving £60,000 in payments from friends and business acquaintances. It is simply extraordinary.
If Bertie Ahern were to apply his own standards to himself he would have already resigned from office. That much is incontestable. Indeed, it is indicative of his naked greed for power that he is still clinging desperately to the Taoiseach’s position after being exposed as a fraud. And that is the only word for his behaviour. It is fraud. Plain and simple.
Some in Fianna Fáil will argue that the Taoiseach did not breach any ethical guidelines in taking money in Manchester and Dublin in 1993 and 1994. That is true only up to a point. While ethical guidelines did not exist at the time it behoved every Minister to make appropriate and honourable decisions in relation to their personal finances. Getting a hand-out of £8,000 at a dinner in Manchester was shameful - and Bertie Ahern must have known it when he took the money.
You shouldn’t need ethical guidelines to govern your life. Honour and honesty come from within. There are many other politicians who served with Mr Ahern in the early 1990s and they were beholden to no-one. They did their job, paid their taxes and never sought a hand-out from anybody, irrespective of what sort of financial situation they found themselves in.
Bertie Ahern chose to go down the road of hand-outs, whip-arounds and cash payments. No-one forced him to take that route - it was his choice and his alone. He should now face up to the consequences of his actions and do the honourable thing. Resignation is the only option open to him - anything less will make a mockery of our entire political system.
The departure of Bertie Ahern is also important for another reason. We need to draw a line in the sand on the Haughey era in Irish politics. Ahern is the last of Haughey’s henchmen - and, like the rest of them, he has been proven to be less than sound on ethics. Fianna Fáil as a party needs to bring an end to the Haughey era; it needs to elect a leader that doesn’t have any baggage from the ancient past. Now is the time for the party to make some difficult - but necessary - decisions.
Yet at the time of writing - Monday morning - it looks like Bertie will survive. He faces a cross-examination in the Dáil to-day (Tuesday) but one suspects that the spin-doctors will have him well versed. Bertie - like Haughey before him - is a political Houdini and he will not be easily toppled. But if he does remain in office he may well be subjecting himself to a political death by a thousand cuts. Sometimes it is better to opt for a swift execution!
A final word on the Ahern controversy. There is a possibility that Bertie will be sitting in Government buildings tomorrow (Wednesday) as Taoiseach and the journalist who published the story will be sitting in Mountjoy Prison as a new inmate. It is incredible that the Irish Times has been hauled before the Mahon Tribunal for publishing a story that was clearly in the public interest. The Irish public have a right to know what their Taoiseach has done in the past - particularly when it involves the payment of a large sum of money to him while he was Minister for Finance. If that isn’t a matter of public interest then what is?
If Colm Keena or Geraldine Kennedy end up behind bars perhaps Bertie Ahern can organise a whip-around for them. We presume he still has a number for Paddy the Plasterer.
