Cowen pacifies green belt

BERTIE AHERN’S moment of true political genius during this term of Government was realising he had to give Charlie McCreevy the flick.

Ivan Yates found the phrase for it when he reminded us on The Week in Politics last Sunday night that eaten bread is soon forgotten. And that was McCreevy’s problem. What he had been so right for in 1997, he was so wrong for seven years later.

Was he killed off by the Frankenstein he himself created to ethically cleanse civil servants from the capital? Was he killed off by the lousy by-election, local election and European election results in 2004?