Ahern payments - Taoiseach is not a victim of the press

In his RTÉ interview on Tuesday evening, Bertie Ahern raised the Pied Piper analogy of up to 50 journalists pursing him in recent days. This amounted to a subliminal suggestion that those reporters doing their jobs were akin to rats. It was one of a number of aspects of his interview that provoked further questions.

The media have a duty to inform the public and to ensure that our political leaders are accountable for their actions. This is essential for the proper functioning of democracy.

When the story of Mr Ahern receiving payments first broke, he was patently disingenuous in refuting suggestions that he had received between €50,000 and €100,000. If he answered the questions truthfully in the first place, reporters would not have had to dig for that information. Instead, he talked about dirty, scurrilous and unjust insinuations.