Few in Irish public life are better at telling stories

AS he so often proved while giving evidence to the Mahon corruption probe, few people in Irish public life are better at telling stories than Bertie Ahern.

And so he again showed at a sumptuous gathering in Dublin’s Mansion House last night where his autobiography was launched as he strode centre stage once more.

The former Taoiseach used his speech to denounce those who today try to rewrite history regarding his decade in charge – which was deliciously ironic is that is exactly what many reviewers have said his new tome does.

Mr Ahern insisted without the hint of irony that the book answered the questions he “totally dodged” while in office. That should secure at least three extra sales then as the trio of judges from the Mahon Tribunal rush down to the bookshops to try and get the real facts regarding the queries he so relentlessly stone-walled and side-stepped during the 14 days he twisted logic in knots as he squirmed in their witness box at Dublin Castle.

But enough of that. He had done the State some service and deserved praise for it, and luckily Charlie McCreevy was on hand to give glowing testimony to the great man – but this being Mr McCreevy his speech was every bit as much about himself as it was about Bertie.

The arch angel of the boom and bust economics that have now buried the Republic in financial rubble twice thanked Bertie for giving him the freedom to send Ireland on to its orgy of credit debt delusion.

Bertie returned the favour with what could easily be interpreted as a dig at his successor.

He insisted the economy was “in safe hands when Charlie McCreevy and myself were in charge of it”.

He then took an even more pointed blast at public sector pay cuts: “They were great people. They deserved what they earned and long live the Irish public service,” he said of the workers now looking down the barrel of another wage cut.

Mr Ahern went out of his way to thank “all the gang at St Luke’s” but there was no mention of Miriam or Celia.

His daughters, heavily pregnant Cecilia and Georgina, their with her husband and their twins Rocco and Jay looked on as Mr Ahern recapped his time in power, yet strangely glossed over the one great undisputed triumph of that time, the peace process.

As he neared the end of the very long speech, a balloon one of his grand children had been playing with popped loudly.

It may not be the last balloon to burst above the former Taoiseach’s head in the coming months.

The choice of the Yeats quotation Mr Ahern used to end his speech showed both defiance and pleading as he faces into the final battle for his reputation and legacy.

It began: “You that would judge me, do not judge alone this book or that, come to this hallowed place where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon...”

That may well be the case, but the final chapter of Mr Ahern’s life story will be written not in his autobiography, but in the soon to be unveiled conclusions of the Mahon corruption probe – whether he likes their judgement or not.