Bertie Ahern has no taste for ostentation. A divorced man who likes women but prefers a pint with the boys at his gritty Dublin local, Ahern, who became taoiseach (prime minister) in 1997, convinced Ireland he was in the game for power, not money, says the Irish Times. Fianna Fáil might have been “the party of the brown envelope” under the “flagrantly corrupt” premier Charles Haughey, but Ahern was different. It is only now, in light of “unexplained transactions totalling almost e900,000”, that we realise “just how cunning he really was”.
Ahern was “the Teflon taoiseach” to whom no dirt ever stuck, says The Independent, “but not even Teflon lasts forever”. It wasn’t one big misdemeanour that led to his resignation last week, but “a dozen mini-scandals and unsatisfactorily explained financial transactions”. Ahern came out fighting when the Mahon Inquiry first began delving into his financial affairs and it looked like he was out of the woods when he won his third election victory last summer.
But questions kept arising. Why did Ahern, a trained accountant, not have a bank account when he was finance minister in the early 1990s? Why did he cash salary cheques at his local pub and keep large wads of cash in his office? Exactly who had financed his former girlfriend’s interest-free home loan? It was the cumulative effect of “so many mysteries” that brought Ahern down; and the suspicion he had perjured himself to keep these secrets under wraps.
It was an ignominious end to what was, in parts, a glorious career. Whether sewing together his fractious party, managing the Celtic Tiger as it roared into full throttle, or playing a pivotal role in Northern Ireland’s peace negotiations, Ahern seemed born to play the part of a modern taoiseach, says The Daily Telegraph. He combined an impeccably Republican pedigree (his father had fought for the IRA against the British during the 1920s War of Independence) with a progressive social outlook that epitomised Ireland’s emergence “from beneath the cassock of the Roman Catholic Church and the shadow of the De Valera years”.
Raised in the working class Dublin suburb of Drumcondra, he joined Fianna Fáil at 14, entered parliament at 26, and, after a stint as Lord Mayor of Dublin, became a cabinet minister in his thirties. A down-to-earth, amiable Mr Fixit, he was 45 when he became Ireland’s youngest-ever taoiseach.
Latterly, Ahern’s “man of the people” credentials have been enhanced by a whiff of glamour, via his multi-millionaire daughters, says the Daily Mail (Ireland). Cecelia is a “chick-lit wunderkind” whose bestseller, PS I Love You, was made into a Hollywood movie. Georgina is married to Nicky Byrne of boy band Westlife and is the mother of photogenic twin boys.
But neither these glittering connections, nor Ahern’s reputation as a statesman and peacemaker, could save him. He insists: “I have done no wrong and have wronged no one”, and he certainly hasn’t come close to rivalling Haughey, says The Daily Telegraph. At 56, Ahern still has time to make his mark elsewhere. Yet there’s no skirting around the fact that “his achievements have been tainted”.
Bertie Ahern: an epic player in the Good Friday Agreement
Even Bertie Ahern’s most trenchant critics at the Irish Times, the newspaper whose investigations led to his downfall, concede that he “possesses the keenest economic brain in the Cabinet and can sniff the way economic winds are blowing faster than most”.
It looks increasingly as if he’s got his timing just right. Having presided over “the greatest period of prosperity” that Ireland has ever known (GDP doubled during his decade at the helm), Ahern is shuffling off the stage ahead of a potentially agonising bust. The IMF notes that Ireland has one of the most overvalued housing markets in the world, with an even worse ratio of prices versus economic fundamentals than Britain. And the economy is already faltering, says Liam Halligan in The Sunday Telegraph. More than any other European economy, “the Republic’s financial fate is tied up with the US”. Halligan believes Ireland’s economic revolution is entrenched enough to survive the storm.
But how much credit goes to Ahern? “Was it the man or the times?” asks the Irish Times. “It was a combination of both.” Ahern did not create the boom, but he did everything in his power to facilitate it, suppressing “social democratic instincts” in favour of pragmatic measures to feed the Celtic Tiger, such as appointing dedicated tax-cutter Charlie McCreevy as minister for finance.
Ahern, like his friend Tony Blair, hopes posterity will overlook the scandal to focus on his contribution to peace in Northern Ireland, The Independent says. “I’ll submit to the verdict of history,” he says – not a bad line. All involved in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement are unanimous in their praise for the “epic heroism” of his efforts to reconcile them. There’s scope for those skills elsewhere in the world.