Banking Inquiry: Committee lands few punches as Bertie deftly dances around the third degree

With his customary confluence of adroit responses and confusing Bertie-Speak, the former taoiseach largely sailed through the afternoon having changed few minds about his legacy, writes Michael Clifford

BERTIE AHERN had a great welcome for his legacy yesterday. His opening statement at the banking inquiry was a self-compiled report card for the decade or so during which he ran the country. He listed off stat after stat, until percentages were coming out his ears. Each showed how much better he had left the country than the state he had found it in.

He spoke clearly, as if determined to set the record straight on how he brought the country out of perdition. But the timbre of his voice betrayed a little hurt, a little resentment that he would have to spell out these matters, when they should have been obvious to everybody.