Bertie

by Colm Keena

  According to Duffy, within months of the election he and others met in the Ahern household to discuss with the new TD what he would try to achieve with the power he now held. As he tells it, there was no particular political philosophy, set of policies or national objectives that galvanised the group. Rather, the focus was on career advancement, with the question of policies being placed in that context. Those at the meeting included Kett, Burke, Chris Wall (active in the Clonliffe Harriers, based in Santry Stadium, where Ahern’s brother Maurice was a leading light) and Paul Kiely (who worked in the Mater Hospital).

  It was totally new to us. None of us had been this close to a TD, and the question was what to do with this new-found position, which opened up endless possibilities, none of which we could ascertain. We felt there was great potential in it, but we actually didn’t know what that potential was. It was an opportunity to do something, but what we didn’t know at that stage. As a result of that particular meeting, I remember typing up a four or five-page document called ‘How to become Taoiseach in Twenty Years’, and what we had in that document was the result of our discussion—how we thought that Bertie could be promoted to become junior minister, senior minister and then Taoiseach. I have searched high and low, and I can’t find it. I definitely had it until I moved house eight or nine years ago. It was a simple document, but it indicated that from that early time he and those of us around him saw the possibility of Bertie becoming Taoiseach.

  To the best of my memory, it really was a programme to become involved in key issues and to bring the best people possible around him to work with him on the key issues, and by doing that to gain his name and acclaim, and then, with the happy bounce of the ball—because we all realised that politics is a very uncertain sport—that he would get promotion and he would make it. One of the early ones that we mentioned, which was very clear to us, was industrial relations. Which was an absolute disaster at that stage, with millions of work days being lost every single year.

  Ahern was a member of the Federated Workers’ Union of Ireland and found the workings of trade unions and industrial relations generally of interest. ‘Bertie said from early on that he was interested in that,’ said Duffy. He said he could recall discussing trade union matters with Ahern in the very earliest period of his political career, ‘scoping out’ the whole movement and identifying who the main players were. ‘Bertie deliberately got to know and befriend, and understand, most of the trade union leaders. That was a very deliberate policy.’

  Ahern was to play a role in the rationalisation of the trade union movement, while the creation of social partnership would be a core element of his political achievements; but Duffy said this wasn’t planned. What was discussed at the early stage was more ‘inchoate’, he said. ‘The germ of the idea, the necessity of going towards those sort of objectives, was there and was spoken about.’

  In his memoirs Ahern wrote that there was no truth in the story that within weeks of his being elected a twenty-year plan was drawn up that envisaged his becoming Taoiseach.

  There is a curious sense of resentment that emerges at times from Ahern’s memoirs. He wrote of going to Leinster House for the first time and having to find for himself what desk he could use, of not being congratulated by anyone or ‘even’ having his photograph taken. In the period 1977–9 the Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, never said one word to him, Ahern wrote. Kind words were said by the Labour Party’s Brendan Corish and Fine Gael’s Liam Cosgrave, and this was, he wrote, his induction into the ‘oldest rule’ in politics: politicians in other parties are the opposition, but your real enemies are in your own party.

  When Lynch appointed Tunney a junior minister in his Government, Tunney had to give up his seat on the Dublin City Council, but he was unhappy at the prospect of Ahern, who had done so surprisingly well in the general election, replacing him. Tunney tried unsuccessfully to block him. Ahern took particular pleasure in topping the poll in the 1979 local elections. By then the popularity that had brought Fianna Fáil such a landslide victory in 1977 had evaporated. The oil crisis had thrown the economies of the Western world into shock and the Irish economy into a tailspin. The national finances quickly deteriorated, and there was an outbreak of bitter industrial strife. Party backbenchers grew uneasy, with mutterings about Lynch and his leadership. Lynch had been a compromise candidate for the party leadership at the time of the resignation of Seán Lemass, and his elevation parked for a time the contest between Haughey and George Colley. Ahern in his memoirs wrote that, at an event in November 1979, Colley came over to him and said hello, the first time he had done so since Ahern’s election as a TD two-and-a-half years earlier. Colley was in the neighbouring constituency of Dublin North-Central but had ‘not once’ spoken to him until then, Ahern wrote. He decided that Colley’s motive was that he wanted to curry favour in the coming leadership battle.

  Ahern saw much in Colley’s background that he admired: he was old Fianna Fáil, his father having been involved in the Easter Rising and the IRA. He had attended ‘Joey’s’ school, run by the Christian Brothers in Fairview, not far from Drumcondra. Yet he always felt, he wrote, that, when he was speaking to him, Colley was ‘looking down’ on him. Ahern did not perceive any such sense of superiority emanating from Haughey, who had grown up in a modest home in the north Dublin suburb of Donnycarney. Indeed, they may well have shared a sense of resentment towards those they considered to have been born into greater privilege. Haughey’s father had been a member of the old IRA, had joined the army but then had been invalided out. Haughey’s very successful ministerial career had suffered a severe setback as a result of the Arms Crisis in 1970, which centred on the importing of guns for the Provisional IRA. Ahern said he supported Haughey over Colley because of the superiority of the former’s ministerial record, though it is likely that the matter was more complex. Paddy Duffy emphasised the ‘republican’ issue.

  It was quite clear that our preferred side of that equation was Haughey. None of this was worked out: it was just the way things were. From early on, Chris Wall and Bertie in particular would always have mentioned Haughey as being the most republican of the two. It was unspoken in many ways, but there was never any question of our giving our loyalty to Colley over Haughey. It was always Haughey.

  Ahern’s ability to ‘smell the wind’ may also have been a factor. The 1977 general election was a landslide for Fianna Fáil, giving it a comfortable absolute majority in the Dáil—the last it would see in the period of Ahern’s political career. Geraldine Kennedy was at the count centre in the RDS in Dublin and came upon a happy-looking Haughey. She asked him why he looked so pleased, given the huge number of deputies who had just been elected under Lynch’s leadership. ‘But they’re all my people,’ replied a smiling Haughey. Kennedy quickly secured a commitment from him that if he became leader he would grant her his first interview as Taoiseach.

  According to Duffy, when he and Ahern were considering any matter they would keep in mind three aspects: the national agenda, the party agenda and the local agenda. It was critical for the progress of Ahern’s career, Duffy said, that each of these was taken into account when deciding on Ahern’s moves as his career unfolded. ‘You had to keep position on all those to keep your momentum moving and to try and move up the ladder.’ There was a very strong focus on getting things done.

  Like everything else in Ireland, perhaps, we spent not enough time thinking about what we should be doing: we spent a huge amount of time trying to do it. Because everything takes so much time. Getting political preferment, in particular, is a big job.

  Ahern’s election had been a surprise in 1977. He kept his head down in the Dáil and negotiated the rise of Haughey and Haughey’s eclipse of Colley without creating enemies. (In his memoirs he said that he acted much as he had done when he had entered the tough environs of St Aidan’s as one of its youngest pupils: he kept his head down and observed.) His primary concern was to solidify his support in his constituency, recognising that all political care
ers are founded on an ability to get elected. He established a well-run ‘ward-boss’ system, a network whereby each road or district in his constituency had someone who operated as the eyes and ears of the organisation and as a conduit for communications with Ahern and his closest associates. All the real or perceived needs or concerns of constituents were given attention, and in return Ahern hoped for electoral support.

  Changes to constituency boundaries in 1980 saw Ahern end up in Dublin Central, one of the poorest, if not the poorest, constituency in the country. He was no longer in a contest with Tunney but was up against Haughey’s leadership rival, George Colley. According to the former political editor of the Irish Times, Denis Coughlan, Haughey put Ahern into Dublin Central so he could ‘shaft’ Colley and thereby damage his prospects in the party leadership stakes.

  Gerald Kenny was a member of the Thomas Davis Cumann at about this time. Centred in the Berkeley Road and Phibsborough area, it was the strongest and largest cumann in the constituency, according to Kenny. An employee of a security firm, who later set up his own business, Kenny joined Fianna Fáil in 1972, having been involved in providing security to the 1971 ard-fheis, where tensions were high as a result of the Arms Crisis. His parents had been in the party. He said he liked, and likes, Ahern but was a supporter of Colley. He agrees with Coughlan’s view on what Haughey wanted Ahern to achieve in the constituency.

  Bertie put Colley in second place in the first election. Then opposed the nomination of his widow, Mary Colley. Bertie would try not to let it be seen that he was trying to shaft someone. But Haughey wanted any of the Colleys out of it.

  Ahern and his supporters knew that Colley was a formidable opponent. According to Duffy, as the 1981 election approached, the ‘Ahern army’ was approximately 100-strong. The election would see ‘the survival of the fittest.’ The ‘army’ was almost professional in its drive, he said, and was determined that every door in the constituency would be knocked on three times during the campaign. The plan was to canvass the whole constituency, even though this broke the rules governing how it was to be divided up with Colley.

  The intensive canvassing and the work since 1977 paid off. Ahern topped the poll, winning almost 19 per cent of the first-preference votes. By comparison, Colley garnered only 6.8 per cent. Nationally, Fianna Fáil failed to get enough deputies returned to remain in Government. The national focus was understandably on the outcome of the election and the formation of a new Government, but there was still time for the media, and those in politics, to register Colley’s humiliation at being elected after his young constituency colleague. Duffy said he had mixed feelings about this.

  We were really surprised. We were a bit shocked that we did so well and that poor old George Colley had been defeated. It was sort of a bitter taste, in a way. We recognised he was a good man, and it was shocking, and you could only imagine being on the far side . . . but I think everyone in the country knew then that this guy, Bertie Ahern, had something special. So I think that really brought Bertie to national political prominence for the first time.

  The early 1980s was a period of great political turmoil. The oil crisis had combined with Fianna Fáil’s 1977 budget strategy to create a noxious economic mix. The public finances and the economy became the core of political debate. There was a whiff of sulphur about Haughey, who many distrusted because of his unexplained wealth, the Arms Trial and what Garret FitzGerald of Fine Gael called, with an unfortunate choice of words, his ‘flawed pedigree’. Haughey would be a divisive figure in the party, and in society generally, during his entire period as party leader, but Ahern managed to position himself solidly in the Haughey camp without creating any animosity in the anti-Haughey wing of the party, or indeed more generally. This achievement can be attributed to his affability, to his apparent modesty and to the care he took to avoid confrontation. His focus was on getting on, and during his first period in the Dáil he made some progress in that regard.

  About a week after Haughey’s elevation to the position of Taoiseach in December 1979, Ahern was appointed as his party’s deputy chief whip. Soon afterwards the chief whip, Seán Moore, fell ill, so Ahern became the de facto chief whip. The post involves ensuring that party members are present for votes in the Dáil—a considerably more difficult job in the era before mobile phones. Ahern also had to compile regular reports for the parliamentary party, have frequent contacts with Government ministers and talk regularly to Haughey. The latter began to refer to Ahern as ‘the kid’.

  Haughey called an election for June 1981, and it turned out to be the first of three general elections within eighteen months. Ahern and his supporters fought all three, and his vote-winning record was further enhanced with each poll.

  It was about this time that Ahern and his supporters launched a programme they later referred to as ‘Operation Dublin’. According to Royston Brady, a former Ahern ward boss and one-time European Parliament candidate for Dublin, the exercise involved seizing control of some cumainn that were not particularly active and the closing down of cumainn that were particularly inactive. The exercise in Dublin Central resulted in a situation where the bulk of the party organisation came under Ahern’s control. ‘If you weren’t willing to play ball, you were gotten rid of, whether you were staunch Fianna Fáil or whether you weren’t,’ Brady said. ‘That didn’t come into it.’ Ahern disputes this analysis in his memoirs, though a similar picture was described by some of Ahern’s inner circle in the ‘Bertie’ televsision documentary.

  Gerald Kenny’s recollection is that Ahern organised the cumainn so that they favoured his position.

  We were joined with O’Donovan Rossa, and the MacEntee-Cusack Cumann based around the markets and formerly in the control of Tom Leonard TD. Leonard had been gifted the seat at a convention, instead of Mary Colley. The three cumainn were to come together. I got [the] position of chairman. The secretary and the chairman essentially run a cumann. Tony Kett got secretary. That meant there was no position for MacEntee-Cusack, and they walked out en masse.

  Joe Tierney said that, while the reorganisation was presented as a citywide exercise, the focus was in fact on Dublin Central, where he and others had resisted the efforts of Haughey and Ahern to impose John Stafford as an election candidate in the 1983 by-election caused by Colley’s death. Haughey, he said, turned into a ‘raging lunatic’ when the local organisation thwarted his efforts, which were supported by Ahern. Then, in the 1985 local elections, the organisation put in a Moore Street trader called Ernie Beggs rather than Ahern, who had to be added to the ticket by the National Executive. At the end of Operation Dublin ‘they had wiped out 16 cumainn and taken control away from me. By me I mean the organisation. He [Ahern] didn’t reorganise anything. He just wiped them out.’

  Kenny said he thought he might be able to rectify matters afterwards with disaffected party members, but it didn’t turn out to be the case.

  So they effectively locked out a bunch of ardent and absolute Fianna Fáil loyalists, and it was just ‘Who cares?’ These were genuine, authentic people—people who were in the party because they thought the party was good for the country. And they were even insulted. Battle stories were told about how cutely it was done. It was totally ruthless and was geared towards garnering power as quickly as possible. There was to be no opposition.

  The February 1982 election, which saw Fianna Fáil under Charles Haughey return to power, led to Ahern being appointed Government chief whip. For the first time he was on the inside track in Leinster House. His memoirs make it clear how much he enjoyed knowing more than his colleagues in the party about what was going on. He had to work with his own party, with the Workers’ Party, which was supporting the Government, and with the independents, who included a constituency rival, Tony Gregory.

  Ahern was highly suited to the position of chief whip, according to the former Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte.

  He was ideal. He had all the skills that were needed for that position. He was diplomatic, reticent, he wa
s underspoken, he would keep the lads in line without being dictatorial or lacking understanding of their problems. He was a very emollient face for the media during a turbulent time in the party’s history. I can’t envisage anyone else going out to the media and being asked how many voted against Haughey [at a parliamentary party vote on his leadership] and saying, ‘I don’t know, I had my head down taking the minutes.’ I mean, no-one else could get away with that kind of thing. He would phone Seán Barrett as the Fine Gael chief whip and they’d meet over two pints of Bass, and they’d fix the business for the next week in the bar, and Bertie would be manoeuvring and so on. Very often I found in my dealings with him that I came out second best, and I would only find out afterwards. You never quite knew what he was looking for when he asked to see you, but you’d find out four weeks later.

  The Haughey Government soon fell, and in November 1982 there was another general election. Ahern won twice as many first preferences as Colley, who was elected after the distribution of Ahern’s surplus. Garret FitzGerald formed a coalition with the Labour Party, and Fianna Fáil found itself in opposition. Ahern, by now acknowledged as a close associate of Haughey’s, was appointed party chief whip and spokesperson on labour affairs, a position that saw him ‘marking’ Ruairí Quinn. Ahern was a TD and Dublin City councillor, a senior figure within the party organisation and a poll-topping politician with a constituency machine to rival the best in the land. He was probably the first Irish politician to make canvassing a permanent activity, not just something that occurred when an election was called. This was to mark the entirety of his political career, firstly at the constituency level but subsequently on a national basis.