Chips are down as lady luck leaves Bertie in the lurch

YOU don’t know who your friends are until the chips are down — but unfortunately for Bertie Ahern the chips in question are the ones earmarked for that mysterious Phoenix Park casino scheme.

With the latest swirl of claims and counterclaims spilling out of the Mahon Tribunal beginning to spin with the frenzy of a roulette wheel, who now would bet on the Taoiseach’s long- term future?

Certainly not Labour leader Eamon Gilmore who circled the most successful taoiseach for half a century during Leader’s Questions as if Mr Ahern was nothing better than wounded prey.