Even in this age of spin, Bertie is the author of his own bad image

LAST week Bertie Ahern was in the news over a representation made by his office on behalf of a quarry owner suffering from cancer. One of Bertie’s staff wrote a letter to a council official pleading that the quarry should not be shut down, because the owner is in ill health.

Writing to an official on the lower rungs of the bureaucratic ladder undermines the process of proper government. It is like making representations to a captain in the army instead of going through the proper chain of command and we saw what that led to in the Arms Crisis. Yet what happened this time was hardly a hanging offence.

Anyway, Bertie did not even see the letter. Somebody in his office used the Taoiseach's notepaper and signed Bertie's name.