Bertie should go without having to be dragged out snarling at people

LITTLE over a week before the current Dáil met for the first time a senior counsel who has worked on the staff of at least one tribunal was asked who was going to be the next Taoiseach.

“I don’t know,” he replied, “but Brian Cowen will be within six months.”

It wasn’t that he had any inside information, but he considered Des O’Neill the best barrister in the country and he felt he must know something that none of the rest of us knows to adopt the attitude he had been taking at the tribunal. Bertie Ahern accused Des O’Neill this week of “trying to set me up and stitch me up”.

If the tribunal was trying to stitch Bertie up, however, it is hard to imagine how any intelligent legal team could have worse timing than to go after him just before Christmas. At this time of year most people are too busy to take much interest in the events at the tribunal.

Anyway, this is the season of goodwill.

If you were to be judged by your fellowman for any mistakes, then surely you would pick as close to Christmas as possible. Bertie could hardly have wished for a better time. But if you are only looking for the truth, surely it does not matter when you ask the questions.

The Taoiseach would probably have won more sympathy if he had kept his cool and the counsel behaved in a hostile way towards him.

Instead, it seemed he was the one who became particularly tetchy and adopted a seething demeanour. After his testimony on Thursday, there was obviously a hostile element in the crowd at Dublin Castle. For the first time it was reminiscent of Charlie Haughey’s days before the McCracken tribunal.

Reporters were clearly not impressed by Bertie’s performance, but there was still a spirit of Christmas about their comments. It was significant, however, that some were talking about his legacy as if he were about to step down.

Bertie Ahern would no doubt enhance his own place in history if he went without being dragged out insulting people. History should remember him for his role in generating social partnership and his part in the Northern peace process. People should also ask about his political friendships.

Ian Paisley and Tony Blair provided invaluable help during the last general election campaign and, in the midst of his current plight, the Americans have invited him to address a joint session of Congress. He clearly has made some powerful friends, even if some are now yesterday’s men.

It is a very rare breed of politician who steps down from power voluntarily. Most political careers end in failure. Seán Lemass is about the only Taoiseach who went without being pushed. The judgment of history has generally been that de Valera stayed too long and thus denied Lemass a longer run at the job. But even though Lemass did go voluntarily at a time of his own choosing, he still went under an unexpected cloud at the very end.

Seán MacEntee launched a savage attack at the last parliamentary party meeting at which Lemass presided as leader. There had been intense rivalry between them, but they had been able to keep their differences within cabinet.

At that last meeting, however, MacEntee launched a savage attack, accusing Lemass of abandoning the party “at its lowest ebb”. He said Lemass “could not have chosen a worse time” to stand down. “Responsibility for this situation, in my view, rests mainly on the Taoiseach,” MacEntee declared.

“The devious course which he has pursued not only in relation to his leadership and on the succession, but to other questions as well, has confounded the members of our organisation so that none of them knows where we stand on any issue. It is astonishing and unjustifiable that the Taoiseach, at this precise moment, should propose, by resigning, to wash his hands of responsibility for the country’s affair, ” MacEntee continued. “Only reason of the utmost gravity, on the borderline, so to speak between life and death, justifies such a step on the part of a leader.”

De Valera had passed on a great Fianna Fáil heritage, but Lemass had squandered it, in MacEntee’s opinion. “Sometimes in recent years it seemed as if it were being dealt with like a personal possession. The State was tottering towards anarchy.”

What the Taoiseach was doing was tantamount to “deserting in the face of the enemy,” MacEntee contended, as he insisted Lemass should stay in office for a further two years. “Is he so weary, so unnerved, that he balks at the task which he will leave to his successor?”

Members sat in stunned silence. Seán MacEntee could hardly have chosen a more inappropriate moment for such attack. He virtually accused the Taoiseach of treason.

After 40 years on the frontline of Fianna Fáil, Lemass had every right to retire without having his patriotism questioned. MacEntee’s attack was as absurd as it was outrageous. He had accused the Taoiseach of leading the country towards anarchy and was at the same time insisting he should stay on for two more years in the national interest.

At one point in his speech, he actually evoked the images of the neo-fascist dictators Franciso Franco of Spain and Antonio Salazar of Portugal as the prototypes of proper leadership. Both of them had shown consistent contempt for democracy. Lemass may have been ambitious, but he patiently bided his time before stepping into de Valera’s shoes. Back then, politicians seemed to feel that people would not trust ambitious men, so they played the role of reluctant leaders.

AS EARLY as January 6, 1921, de Valera told the Dáil in the midst of the Treaty debate that he was quitting public life. “I am sick and tired of politics — so sick that no matter what happens I would go back to private life,” he said. “I have only seen politics within the last three weeks or a month. It is the first time I have seen them and I am sick to the heart of them.”

He did eventually quit, more than 50 years later when he was in his 90s!

Jack Lynch succeeded Lemass and played the role of the reluctant leader with aplomb. He actually said he was not interested in the job, and he waited for Lemass to press him to run. He replied that he would have to consult his wife, Mairín, first.

When Lemass asked George Colley to withdraw from the race, he said he too would have to consult his wife, Mary.

“What kind of people have I got when one man has to get his wife’s permission to run and the other has to get his wife’s permission to withdraw?,” Lemass asked. He never bothered to consult his wife Kathleen on such matters. She only learned of his decision to retire after he had announced it.

Charlie Haughey did promptly agree to withdraw in favour of Lynch when Lemass asked him. “I’m glad someone can give me a straight answer around here,” the retiring Taoiseach remarked.

Bertie was separated from his wife, so she did not figure in his deliberations. But it seems the tribunal team thinks he was hiding money from her.

Hence all the questions about his lack of a bank account as Minister for Finance. It would be nice to get some straight answers now because there are likely to be many more questions.