Taoiseach’s emotional performance may have assuaged public’s concerns

THIS was a Bertie Ahern we have never seen before, raw, direct, and emotional, bringing him at one point to the verge of tears.

After five days of unrelenting speculation and of incredible pressure, he knew that this interview would provide one of those pivotal moments — giving him a means of overcoming the gravest personal crisis of his political career, or one that had potentially career-ending possibilities.

The fact that it had trundled on for five days, that the interview had been well-signalled, had led to a sense of massive anticipation. And in the event, his decision to come clean and give an account of the 1993 payments on national television rather than in the Dáil was an adroit strategic decision.