Gilmore is right: Bertie should do the honourable thing and resign

EAMON GILMORE gave a fascinating interview on Tuesday’s Morning Ireland. It was the finest I have heard from the new leader of any party. He was forceful, yet compassionate and fair.

His call for Bertie Ahern’s resignation made the headlines, but there was no invective or bitterness. Bertie accepted money for personal use while in office and therefore compromised himself and his office. That is untenable.

“Without any sense of malice or anything like that, I think that this is an occasion where the Taoiseach himself should do the honourable thing and resign to avoid the situation where the country has to get into a great political row over all of this”, Mr Gilmore said. “I think from his own point of view as well, that is the best way because one has to acknowledge the very substantial contribution that the Taoiseach himself has made to the life of the country”.

Interviewer Áine Lawlor challenged the Labour leader for basically ignoring the wishes of the electorate. They re-elected Bertie for “a record third term”, she noted. For the record, let it be noted that after Eamon de Valera was elected in 1932, he was re-elected consecutively in 1933, 1937, 1938, 1943, and 1944, as well as being elected Taoiseach in 1951 and 1957. The title of his office was changed from President of the Executive Council to Taoiseach in line with the 1937 constitution, but even as Taoiseach he was re-elected not just twice but three consecutive times — in 1938, 1943, and 1944. On two of those occasions Fianna Fáil had overall majorities.

Ms Lawlor contended that everybody knew Bertie accepted £30,000 for his personal use whether it was in dollars, sterling or whatever: “They knew that when they voted for him and his party at the last election, so what is the point in calling on him to resign now?”

They did know, Mr Gilmore admitted: “If you recall he also asked people to give him the opportunity of explaining his side of the story at the tribunal”.

Ms Lawlor insisted: “The fact is he took the £30,000. If that was wrong then, it’s wrong now”.

If they wished to be consistent, they should have attacked him on the basis that he was “not fit to be Taoiseach”, as she put it.

Mr Gilmore replied: “There are certain standards that have to be maintained in public life — accepting large sums of money when you are an office-holder for private use is not one of them. Now I also think we have to be fair in the way that we conduct our business. The man asked for an opportunity to give an explanation. He was given that opportunity. The explanation, in my view, does not stand up. And I don’t think that we now have to wait for another 12 months or 18 months until the tribunal writes its report.”

The tribunal is going to express an opinion on the evidence that has been heard in public. But those who espouse political leadership should be able to make up their own minds on that evidence.

“I think that a political conclusion has to be drawn on this”, Mr Gilmore insisted. “The political conclusion I’m drawing is that the Taoiseach should resign”.

He emphasised, however, that he was doing this reluctantly. “I say it with reluctance for two reasons”, he explained. “First of all because, I think, most of us like him. He’s a very likeable man. I do say it with reluctance because I think he has made a significant contribution to this country and I think that has to be acknowledged, but I don’t think we can have a situation that as Minister for Finance he was in receipt of very large — you’re talking about the money involved was £108,000 at the time, that would be €300,000 in today’s terms. It’s not acceptable that an office- holder accepts money from private sources for private use and then can’t explain it.”

It is refreshing to have a politician acknowledge that somebody has made a valuable contribution to public life, even when calling for his resignation. Over the years I argued that Charlie Haughey made a valuable contribution. Others would argue that he never did any good, or if he did, his misbehaviour more than undid the good he achieved. That is probably a valid judgment, but one can only come to it after examining the good as well as the bad.

Most critics were never prepared to examine or acknowledge that Haughey ever did any good.

Nobody should forget that Bertie Ahern has a number of outstanding achievements.

Maybe he was lucky that war weariness had already taken hold in the North by the time he came on the scene, but he played a magnificent role in extremely tense circumstances.

I have two abiding memories of his role. One is of John Taylor thanking him for his invaluable help at the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. Taylor acknowledged that it was a very difficult time for the Taoiseach who had to rush to Stormont immediately after his mother’s funeral.

The second memory is of Ian Paisley at the Boyne charging forward to shake Bertie’s hand in front of the TV cameras. This was the man who had been bellowing for years that he would NEVER even meet, much less shake the hand, of any Taoiseach. Of course, it was done to help Bertie in the election, just like Tony Blair’s gesture of inviting Bertie to address the British parliament. Both gestures undoubtedly did help, but those were a testament to Bertie’s skill in building the bridges that prompted such help.

ANOTHER great achievement was his magnificent role in developing social partnership; he was the main architect.

People may remember Jack Lynch as the most popular Taoiseach. He managed to secure overall majorities for all three of his governments, but his terms of office were plagued by strikes, even in the 1960s when the country experienced its first real boom.

Having acknowledged all that, however, it is still time for Bertie to go. In 1997, Judge McCracken was blisteringly critical of Haughey in his tribunal report. He concluded it was “quite unacceptable that a member of Dáil Éireann, and in particular a cabinet minister and Taoiseach, should be supported in his personal lifestyle by gifts made to him personally”.

Bertie was Taoiseach at the time and he warmly endorsed the report.

“The tribunal stresses a point I have repeatedly emphasised, that public representatives must not be under a personal financial obligation to anyone”, Bertie said.

But he accepted money from friends and then, as Taoiseach, he found it necessary to defend his appointment of some of those people to State boards.

“I appointed them because they were friends, not because of anything they had given me”, he told Brian Dobson in his famous TV interview.

If, like Haughey, he hangs on until he has polarised his party and polluted political life, or until he is dragged out kicking and screaming, he will not be remembered for his real achievements but as another gouging politician who trampled on standards in the vain pursuit of office and power.

“I am certainly not that perfect”, he admitted with an endearing candour. He should do the honourable thing by recognising his mistake and announcing the date of his resignation. This would set a valuable precedent that no politician should ever accept such favours. Then we could all lament the necessity of his going.