Dermot Ahern backs Government to survive payments row

Embattled Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s Government should survive the controversy over payments he received 13 years ago, Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern insisted today.

Mr Ahern, who was visiting Stormont for a round of talks with the North's Assembly parties, said it would be a shame to throw away nine and a half years of good government on the basis of concerns about the payments to the Taoiseach when he was Minister for Finance.

“I very much agree with the sentiment of Deputy Prime Minister and Progressive Democrat leader Michael McDowell over the weekend when he indicated we have to have a sense of proportion in relation to this,” the Fianna Fáil minister said.

“Are you going to turn around and throw away nearly 10 years of extremely good government on the basis of something that happened 13 years ago when it is quite clear that the guidelines in relation to this weren’t as tight as perhaps they should have been.

“I am somebody who takes politics day by day but I have no doubt that the Government will continue.

“It has been a good government and I think no better person than Michael McDowell could see that in that he has worked with the Taoiseach very closely as Attorney General and as Minister for Justice for the last nearly nine and a half years.

“I can’t see this coming to an end in the near future and I have no doubt that we will go to the end of what we proposed and that is the summer of 2007”.