Bertie’s choice: Go with dignity or risk joining the political low-life

The Taoiseach will be making a terrible blunder if he tries to exploit the innate decency and compassion that people feel for him by abusing those who did their job in exposing his wrongdoing.

He accepted money from people as a minister. He denounced that behaviour when Haughey was exposed

UNLIKE his more immediate predecessors within Fianna Fáil, Bertie Ahern will be remembered as a safe pair of hands. There were no great surprises or gambles. He was an astute political operator.

He took no bold initiatives with his cabinets. Those that he would drop in the coming years, he did so gently.

Rumours had surrounded Ray Burke for years, but Bertie Ahern appointed him Minister for Foreign Affairs in 1997. When Burke’s position became untenable within a matter of months, the Taoiseach appeared to let him go on his own terms and blamed the media and the opposition for hounding a good man from office.

On dropping James McDaid from the cabinet, Bertie had the government appoint him a junior minister. When John O’Donoghue was pushed last year, he was compensated with the post of Ceann Comhairle, while Dick Roche was appointed a junior minister.

Ivor Callely, who was forced to resign as minister of state after disclosures in relation to the painting of his house, lost his seat in the last general election. He then failed to get the nomination of his colleagues to run for the Senate before party headquarters imposed him on the ballot, only to have him fail dismally in that election.

In spite of all, the Taoiseach appointed Callely as one of his nominees to the Seanad. If he did not bring the whole institution into disrepute by that appointment, he certainly discredited the concept of allowing anyone to flout the democratic will of people by appointing somebody who had been so obviously rejected.

There was a perception that Charlie McCreevy was shafted, but he has made it clear in recent months that he asked to be appointed to the European Commission. He apparently dithered before going, but if he was shafted, it was the golden shaft. That was Ahern’s way, though Albert Reynolds got a different kind of shaft.

Over the years when opponents got into political trouble, Bertie would call for an explanation rather than for a head.

He was characteristically restrained when Bobby Molloy got involved in controversy over intervening with the judiciary in a particularly sordid incestuous rape case involving one of his constituents.

Molloy had to go, but the Taoiseach did not call for his head on a platter, which was what the PDs would have done if the member of another party were involved.

“I don’t agree with that,” the Taoiseach said. “A person is entitled to a bit of space.”

“I just hope that every politician elected in Dáil Éireann can be absolutely certain that they deal with all of their correspondence and all their issues in a perfect way,” he added. “I certainly am not that perfect.” Politicians are people, the Taoiseach told the Dáil. “No one is infallible or perfect.”

Indeed, he essentially facilitated Charles Haughey to divert money for his own use from the party leader’s fund by signing blank checks. But Bertie Ahern never pretended to be perfect, which may be one of the secrets of his success.

He worked effectively with coalition colleagues, even with Michael McDowell, who was probably the most accomplished political head-hunter whether in or outside Leinster House. McDowell played major roles in ousting Brian Lenihan, Jim McDaid, Charlie Haughey, Albert Reynolds, and Ray Burke, but when he tried to move against Bertie Ahern before the last general election, he was unable to carry his own party.

Critics of Bertie Ahern have been almost apologetic in their criticism. Enda Kenny was pilloried for his failure to put in the boot. Following his election as leader of the Labour party, Eamon Gilmore was distinctly apologetic when he called on the Taoiseach to “do the honourable thing and resign to avoid the situation where the country has to get into a great political row.”

He said he was calling on him with reluctance because he liked him. “He’s a very likeable man,” Gilmore said, adding, “I think he has made a significant contribution to this country and I think that has to be acknowledged.”

While Bertie Ahern made very few enemies, he clearly made some powerful friends, which was never more apparent than in the past year as his political troubles mounted at home.

He was accorded the rare honour of being invited to address the British parliament by Tony Blair and Ian Paisley rushed to shake his hand at the Boyne. He will be crowning his term as Taoiseach by addressing a joint session of the US Congress just one week before he formally resigns on May 6 — the 28th anniversary of the Arms Crisis.

The Taoiseach will be making a terrible blunder, however, if he tries to exploit the innate decency and compassion that the Irish people feel for him in his plight by abusing those who did their job in exposing his wrongdoing.

He accepted money from people as a minister. He denounced that behaviour when Charlie Haughey was exposed. Moreover, when the dig-outs were exposed, he admitted he had made a mistake himself. He should not try now to blame others for his mistake. After accepting the money, he appointed at least six of those people to State boards. Of course, he did not get as much from them as Charlie Haughey got from Ben Dunne.

What he did may well have been the sleazy norm of the political culture of the time when politicians from various parties accepted money as if it was their God-given right rather than a form of corruption.

DO THE Fianna Fáilers really want us to believe ethics only came in with Dick Spring in the 1990s? Bertie can go on a high with dignity or he can try to dump all over the place — on the opposition, the media and the tribunal with his “low-life stuff.” He would do well to remember Dev’s dictum about the shame of those twice fooled.

When Bertie let Ray Burke resign in 1997, he acted as if the opposition and the media had wronged ‘Rambo’ whom he extolled for his “outstanding record of service as a public representative for 30 years as a councillor and TD. I have always found him to be a proud, honourable man, loyal, true, persevering, principled, caring and committed,” the Taoiseach told the Dáil.

“On behalf of the Government, but in particular on behalf of the Fianna Fáil party, I thank him for his distinguished years of service to his constituents and his country.

Those who choose politics as a profession know from the outset that they are putting their lives on the line in their determination to serve the public,” the Taoiseach continued.

“They have to accept the criticism which attends their decisions and their every action. Their families, too, learn to take the brunt of stinging remarks which often overstep the boundaries of civility and courtesy. In the case of Ray Burke, I see a much more sinister development, the persistent hounding of an honourable man to resign his important position on the basis of innuendo and unproven allegations,” he concluded The evidence of Burke’s corruption was already there for anyone who chose to look at it but, of course, Bertie was only looking up the trees of North Dublin. Maybe he fooled some people for a while, but not for long. If people are fooled again with the same tactics, shame on them.