Irish Examiner view: Back in the news

Eighty-six year-old Silvio Burlesconi is intensive care and is also believed to have been diagnosed with leukemia. Picture: AP Photo/Andrew Medichini

After a long hiatus, Silvio Berlusconi is back in the headlines he once dominated.

The Italian, 86, is in intensive care, fighting a lung infection, and it has also been disclosed that he has been living with leukaemia for some time.

A wealthy media tycoon, Berlusconi spread his wings into the sporting arena, taking ownership of AC Milan in 1986 and helping create one of the greatest club teams Europe has ever seen, before entering politics in 1994 and becoming a controversial yet enduring public representative.

He served as prime minister in four administrations between 1994 and 2011, holding the post for a total of nine years and becoming Italy’s longest-serving politician in the post since the Second World War. He was Italy’s third longest-serving prime minister since unification, after Benito Mussolini and Giovanni Giolitti.

In a career noted for legal travails — he was jailed for tax fraud in 2013 — as well as an ability to insult almost every foreign leader in the world, he was also involved in a sordid case involving payment for sex to a minor.

Berlusconi’s current illness looks like it might be one of the few disasters in his life he might not be able to overcome.