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So, what’s the worst that can happen? Ahern and Fianna Fáil
Read more about: Bertiegate, Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Green Party, Irish Election, Irish Politics, Labour Party, Sinn Féin, Tribunals
Reading about the current events down the Tribunal in the Sunday Business Post is illuminating. Sure, Bertie Ahern had a rough day on Friday. Those jeers outside can’t be good - to put it mildly. Whether they’re quite up there with Haughey is a different matter. And… protestations notwithstanding, this constant batting too and fro about just how much was lodged or purchased while somewhat esoteric may well have a cumulative effect.
As Vincent Browne notes:
The investigations of the Planning Tribunal into all of this have been impressive, but the laboriousness of the procedure in public sessions, the long-winded questions - sometimes going on for over a minute at a time - and the sheer tediousness of it all may dull the reaction to its findings.
And yet, it doesn’t really matter which is one of the reasons - I suspect - there has been much less concentration on it on blogs than might have been expected previously. If things turn really nasty, and there is little reason to believe they will at this point, then no doubt some sort of sacrifice will be required, our hero may have to fall on his sword. And…er…that’s it really.
Because that really is it. In the run up to the election it did matter, or at least somewhat. The opposition could take comfort in Ahern’s woes. Fianna Fáil could do little but wonder how they would impact upon the poll. But thats all history now. The coalition is locked tight. One in all in. Everyone signed up at the beginning. They knew the score. Talking to some Green Party people in recent months it is clear that they’re settled in. If they’re not leaving, who then? And despite the best efforts of the Irish Times (with multiple page reports from the Tribunal), there is a sense that all this is yesterday’s story.
Pat Leahy in the SBP points to:
… [with] another five years of government stretching before them, the mood among government TDs is pretty buoyant, despite their leader’s troubles. In truth, the processes of adjusting to the departure of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern started a long time ago, probably before his definitive statement in the wake of the general election.
I’d take very slight issue with how he characterises the processes ahead:
Brian Cowen, the Minister for Finance, will be taking over as party leader anyway, they reason. Later probably, but no big deal if it’s sooner. Politics is not a sentimental profession.
Nonetheless, the question of Ahern’s departure from office - its timing, its consequences and the manner of it - will be a huge issue on the Irish political landscape in the coming few years.
I think the political landscape is already determined. And … whisper it quietly… perhaps both FF TDs and their coalition partners might actually prefer the rather more technocratic, and apparently emollient, style of Brian Cowen. A safe pair of hands to guide them to a successful election in 2012.
So much better than a situation where as Leahy argues there is considerable cognitive dissonance between entirely contradictory views held by the political class and the general public over the current events.
In a curious way all those valedictory party political broadcasts in the run up to the 2007 Election provided the eulogies. Weren’t many of Ahern’s dearest friends in world politics dragged in? And now, well now it is just a question of waiting until he departs the stage.
No doubt he, and we, would prefer that it might be otherwise, but as Leahy notes:
If there’s a tide in the affairs of men, that tide ebbs and flows more dramatically in the world of politics. Last May, with a stunning third election victory on the back of a robust economy and peace in the North and against the expectations of many of his closest colleagues, Bertie Ahern reached his high water mark.
As involuntary spectators we have no say in the matter. For many of us watching, who support the left, our ship has sailed and we have to hope that there is better news in 2012. The internal affairs of Fianna Fáil are a different country. And that lends a certain distance. Still, interesting to contemplate just how this might be playing out had the numbers turned out tighter and had the Green Party not been in government. Perhaps we might have seen a more 1994 like situation in those circumstances.
In any case, the timing is difficult. The opposition is preoccupied. Fine Gael is - finally - undergoing a period of introspection about its ‘nearly but not quite’ result. Labour, with the new guy at the helm is just settling in and Sinn Féin is busily otherwise engaged.
But in establishing this particular coalition - unlikely as it appears to be - may well have been Ahern’s last political masterstroke, if only because it is so well built that it can outlast its creator.
I agree with your analogy completely. The impact of the Tribunal is 2 years away yet, when the final report is written. By that time, Bertie will have reached his tender age of 58 and will most likely be appointed President of the EU Council. The report will no doubt be long-winded and vague, like all legal documents. And the perceived notion of its damage to Ahern will not be as damaging as predicted. The overall sense of futility is what most Irish people feel at present. Yes, there probably was an element of wrong-doing in the events of 1993, but given the long list of tax defaulters with settlements well into the millions from all corners of the island in those times, Bertie is guilty only of the status quo. I vehemently believe that he is sorry for the circumstances, but can see his reasoning for not thinking it was wrong. It doesn’t excuse him from incorrectness, but we have more to be grateful for than to resent. Bertie is but one man in the cog of Irish progression. History will be the judge of how big his input and drive was in the republic and the north. But his ultimately legacy I believe is that Ireland is better for him than without him.
diarmy
You ask what is the worst that can happen?
I think the best that can happen is for the Tribunal to find Bertie culpable.
Darmy asks how history will judge him.
When General Burgoyne, in “The Devil’s Disciple” (GB Shaw), was asked, by his adjutant, how history would record the disaster (in the American campaign), the general replied, “History, as usual, will tell lies” .
The only consistency about history is that every time it repeats itself, the price goes up.
Apart from the Minimum Wage legislation (A sop to his brothers in the unions), I cannot recall anything that Bertie Ahern did that was of value to the Republic of Ireland. He even drinks imported beer. He seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time traveling the world, duplicating Dermot Ahern’s bailiwick in Foreign Affairs.
A leader should be in his Dail office 24/7, managing the country he was elected to run. Not the North of Ireland, which is the responsibility of the UK; not Europe which has capable people to carry out their responsibilities.
I doubt that he will be elected President of the EU Council. For starters, he cannot communicate in English, let alone French; Spanish; German etc… Secondly, he is basically a trade union negotiator; a compromiser who cannot function without professionally prepared briefing papers. And he is not a Statesman.
Best to join his comrades in the movement; take his €250K a year and expenses, grow a beard and buy a pair of sandals.
I give up.
sos, I’m no fan of Ahern on a political level, but he actually has done some service to the state. You and I clearly differ about the issue of the North. Frankly, and I’ve said it before, there could be no greater issue as regards the stability of this state as a democratic polity, and any Taoiseach would have to deal with it. The idea that it is the sole responsibility of the UK is ahistoric - and I’m sorry to use the word - nonsense. As regards other issues, well the record is more mixed, but to suggest he has done nothing of value to the RoI is simply incorrect. You and I may actually agree that certain things were very badly handled, but that is a different issue.
I think I must agree with WorldbyStorm.
My point was that Ahern can no more force a Constitution on Europe than a comprehensive agreement on the North. He can lend the weight & support of the Irish People and be their voice. The UK have wanted to be rid of the North since the end of WW2. It is the people of the North that want British protection, to say nothing of the huge subsidies.
The real issues facing Ireland are financial and the fall out from the greed of American bankers.
I wrote a post, in May 2006, called “Whither Apathy” - setting out the probable result of a continuance of the downward trends in the USA.
I felt then, that the tipping point had arrived and as soon as the feel good factor of the 2007 SSIAs had evaporated, the realities of the situation in the USA would begin to happen here.
IT IS HERE - NOW…
…and we need a strong leader to bring in the necessary remedies.
And that is not Mr. Ahern.
Well, we’ll see, won’t we? That seems to both inflate his importance, and simultaneously diminish it.
Incidentally, is Cowen the sort of leader you envisage?
No, I was thinking of someone like Peter Sutherland.
Peter Sutherland?? You mean you want Ireland run by the Bilderberg Group?
Quoting Wikipedia:
“Some of the Western world’s leading financiers and foreign policy strategists attend Bilderberg. Donald Rumsfeld is an active Bilderberger, as is Peter Sutherland from Ireland, a former European Union commissioner and chairman of Goldman Sachs and of British Petroleum. Rumsfeld and Sutherland served together in 2000 on the board of the Swedish/Swiss engineering company ABB. Former U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary and former World Bank head Paul Wolfowitz is also a member…”
Sort of helps you to see Bertie’s virtues, doesn’t it?