Mr Ahern’s finances - We’re still waiting for answers

Despite the slowdown in the economy, An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern can take justifiable satisfaction from this country’s continuing economic success, especially when compared with other countries that were for so long considered models of economic achievement.

He is also entitled to personal satisfaction in accomplishing his main goals of 2007 — in being re-elected as taoiseach and seeing a devolved, power-sharing executive set up in the North.

He chose to dismiss the recent decline in support for both Fianna Fáil and himself in the public opinion polls as part of the normal ups and downs of politics. He is seriously deluding himself, however, if he thinks there has been no widening of the issues in relation to him before the tribunal. It is about much more than an investigation into a second-hand story about whether or not Owen O’Callaghan gave him money. Mr Ahern again admitted yesterday, for instance, that he accepted money from friends but then added, “I quite frankly don’t see anything wrong with that”.