Bad example - Shame on Bertie and the system

As we begin the new year, former taoiseach Bertie Ahern has announced that he is quitting politics at the end of the current Dáil term. In a sense, it marks the end of an era, and it would be nice to be able to think that we could now put all of the heartache and the pain of the past few years behind us, but that is not realistic.

There will inevitably be reminders of the excesses of the Celtic Tiger era in the midst of the pain of tackling the current financial crisis. Some developments, such as the forthcoming report of the Mahon Tribunal, may well raise serious questions.

Various assessments are being made today about Mr Ahern’s political impact. Some will argue, with justification, that his legacy in relation to the North overshadows the negatives. There is no doubt that major progress was made in different areas during his period as taoiseach.

There were significant structural developments, and a dramatic increase in the numbers employed, as well as in welfare payments. Mark Fielding of ISME described him as a fixer who “did not really think about the long-term cost of the fixes”.

Bertie Ahern claims he was not responsible for what happened, but others will argue that, figuratively, he was the one who was driving the bus when it started down the road from which it went over the cliff. The ultimate verdict on his legacy must be left to history.

Regardless of who was responsible, we must now pick up the pieces. To move forward properly we need to learn from past mistakes.

The desperate struggle to get home this Christmas was a poignant reminder of the heartache that may be endured by many families who will likely be forced to emigrate because family breadwinners have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. If, as a society, we face up to the horrific dangers now, hopefully other families will be spared such upheaval.

Society will be paying for the past mistakes for years to come, and we must ask whether we should continue to reward those who allowed the current economic tragedy to happen. Some of the public service pensions, for instance, bear no relationship to the amount that those people actually paid into their pensions. Such pensions would have been prohibitively expensive in the private sector.

Bertie Ahern will be paid around €50,000 a year more on his pension than he would earn if he were re-elected in the next general election. He will actually receive much more for doing nothing than the average worker earns in a year of honest toil. He prided himself on being an ordinary man, but there is nothing ordinary about this arrangement. It is not only bad economics; it is lousy example.