Ahern resignation - It’s time to unite against dishonesty

In the first act of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the execution of Thane of Cawdor is described to King Duncan:

With one that saw him die; who did report That very frankly he confessed his treasons, Implor’d your Highness’ pardon, and set forth A deep repentance. Nothing in his life Became him like the leaving it.”

And though Bertie Ahern has not been accused of treason, his weekend assertion that his resignation from Fianna Fáil “should not be interpreted as an admission of wrongdoing” makes it impossible to feel even the kind of flickering sympathy afforded to Cawdor as the axe fell.

Mr Ahern has on many occasions, especially when lecturing foreign audiences about economic development, articulated the kind of delusion that James Thurber captured so perfectly in his character Walter Mitty. He did so again yesterday.

That he dressed his resignation up as a wish not to harm Fianna Fáil is both hilarious and tragic. Hilarious in that he imagines he might be believed and tragic that so many of us did believe him for so very long.

He and his mentor Charles Haughey — found by the Moriarty Tribunal in 2006 to have received payments of £11.56m between 1979 and 1996 and that he granted favours in return — are the primary architects of the party’s humiliation. However, Friday’s motion to expel members before Fianna Fáil’s national executive confirms he was not alone. The truth is that he could hardly do any more harm to the party than he has already done.

It is very difficult too to tally his resignation with his assertion of innocence — “I can’t allow this blemish on my character to go unanswered. What has been said about me is erroneous, unwarranted and unjust”, he said. Surely anyone who feels so wronged, someone who has shown his steel on many occasions, would use every opportunity to argue their case, to seek vindication?

One person vindicated by the report is Thomas Gilmartin and his son’s — Thomas Gilmartin Jnr’s — weekend statement gave some indication of what it was like, how doors close and how your life changes, when you stood up to the extortionists in Fianna Fáil.

Derided and undermined by the corrupt Pádraig Flynn — “astounding, incredible and untrue” were just some of the words used to describe his evidence — Mr Gilmartin and others like him are owed a debt of gratitude by this society. Without people with that kind of courage, corrupt politicians unchallenged by a seemingly cowed police force will win the day. It should be a cause for concern for anyone who cares for this country that it took so very long to finally unearth such widespread corruption.

As the Mahon Report is more thoroughly digested, it is possible to have some Cawdorish sympathy for the party’s rank-and-file members who are active in politics for the very best reasons. Like the rest of us they were betrayed and lied to.

However, they have an opportunity to make sure their successors are never in their position. They can work with the Government — who have yet to commit to implementing the recommendations — to ensure that suggestions made by Mahon that would tackle the corruption identified at every level of Irish political life reach the statute books. By being honest with themselves, they can help restore honesty to our politics.