‘I don’t want to be taking anyone’s character. But somebody took mine’

The following is the full transcript of the interview Taoiseach Bertie Ahern gave to RTÉ news.

Brian Dobson: Taoiseach, before we come to the detail in relation to this, and you’ve acknowledged that payments were made from friends and associates in late 1993, can you explain to us first of all the context in which this occurred, the background to this exercise?

Bertie Ahern: Yes, over the last number of years, a number of false allegations, half-truths, lies were made against me to both the