Passport exposé damaging, but not fatal

IS it fatal?

That is the question being asked about the revelation that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern helped obtain a passport for a Fianna Fáil donor behind a controversial casino project.

The simple answer is “no”.

Like many revelations in recent months — the lodgments to Mr Ahern’s personal accounts in the 1990s, his inability to get a tax clearance certificate, the admission that he had made a “voluntary disclosure” to Revenue — it was damaging.

But fatal? Not by a long shot.

Admittedly, it doesn’t look good that, as finance minister in August 1994, Mr Ahern helped Norman Turner obtain a passport.

Just a few months earlier, Mr Turner had made a $10,000 donation to Fianna Fáil, handing the moneydirectly to Des Richardson, the party fundraiserappointed by Mr Ahern.

At the time of the donation, Mr Turner was involved in the consortium seeking political support for proposals to build a casino and conference centre in Dublin’s Phoenix Park.

In the same week that Mr Ahern helped Mr Turner obtain his passport, he lodged £20,000 to an AIB account for the education of his daughters. Mr Ahern has told the tribunal this money came from £50,000 he had saved between 1986 and 1993, and which he kept in safes in St Luke’s and the Department of Finance.

Fine Gael is hinting that the timing of the lodgment and the procurement of the passport is not a coincidence. The party also has suspicions about the fact that Mr Turner made his donation to Fianna Fáil in dollars. This suspicion arises from the fact that the tribunal has suggested a £28,772.90 lodgment made by Mr Ahern in December 1994 equated to $45,000.

Fine Gael is adding two and two together but, for the moment at least, getting five.

The Taoiseach has denied ever dealing in dollars. There is nothing to suggest he accepted money in return for assisting with the passport application. There is nothing, in fact, to suggest he did anything improper in helping Mr Turner obtain the passport. As Mr Ahern himself has pointed out, TDs help constituents obtain passports all the time. And Mr Turner’s mother was from Cork, meaning this wasn’t a “passports for sale”-type saga.

So he can swat away the allegations. And Fianna Fáil will continue to stand behind him, knowing that this isn’t the revelation that will take the floor from under him.

Mr Ahern and his party will plough on, until one of two things happen: [a] he steps aside at a time of his own choosing, which he has suggested will be after the local and European elections of mid-2009, or there will be a fatal revelation that forces him to step down sooner.

The passport issue wasn’t that fatal revelation. But it was damaging nonetheless, for it further eroded Mr Ahern’s credibility and standing in the public eye.

Having to return to the tribunal to give a further two days of evidence later this month won’t help matters. The latest polls show that a majority of people do not believe the evidence Mr Ahern has already given.

Given all of this, it has been repeatedly suggested that Mr Ahern’s political career is suffering death by a thousand cuts. That may prove a dubious proposition, given the Taoiseach’s determination not to be forced from office. It may be more accurate to say that his reputation is suffering death by a thousand cuts. And all the determination in the world can’t do anything to counter that.