Taoiseach’s rule like last days of John Major

THE Taoiseach’s response to the horrific findings of the Ryan report encapsulated many of the characteristics that have left him in so much trouble with voters — it was belated, ill-thought out and proved once again he is unable to read the public mood.

He was not ready for Lisbon, not ready for the recession, not ready for the emergency budgets, and last week not ready for a report coming down the tracks for 10 years. It was a similar story with the murders of two British soldiers in Armagh last March as they collected pizzas on a Saturday night. The lightning strike attack sent a pronounced shiver of impending dread through the island, but the Taoiseach did not show his face and comment on the matter publicly until 42 hours later.

Say what you like about Bertie Ahern, but he’d have been across every media outlet from first light that Sunday assuring the nation the North would never be allowed to return to the darkness it had so recently dragged itself from.