by Colm Keena
As well as being involved in the 1981 and 1982 general elections, Ahern was also involved in a by-election in 1983, though not as a candidate. George Colley died of a heart attack in September 1983, so a by-election had to be held in Dublin Central. A number of deputies died at about this time, including Brian Cowen’s father, Ber Cowen, and Ahern later said this was probably to some extent attributable to the stress created by all the political upheavals. There was great tension in the party, with passionate disagreements between those who supported Haughey and those who felt that he was unfit for office. Those who opposed Haughey wanted the candidate in the by-election to be Colley’s widow, Mary Colley, while Haughey wanted the candidate to be a local businessman, John Stafford. Neither one was eventually selected, with Ahern arguing that putting either candidate forward would simply focus the poll on the divisions that existed within the party. He was in favour of another candidate, Tom Leonard, whom, he argued, the party could unite behind.
Paddy Duffy has a different take on the matter. He said that he, Joe Burke and Chris Wall, having been tutored well by Ahern, met Haughey to discuss the matter, but the reasons put forward to Haughey were not the real ones motivating Ahern and his supporters.
We persuaded him that Tom Leonard was the man, because we wanted a weaker candidate, one we could control, and very reluctantly Haughey agreed, and we went down to Kennedy’s [pub in Drumcondra] afterwards, and we were all standing round. Tony Kett was there as well, and Haughey said, ‘Give the lads a drink,’ and we all had a pint; and then afterwards, because Haughey would only have one drink, Haughey said, ‘I don’t appear to have any money. Here, Bertie, look after that.’
It was after this failure to have his will imposed on the constituency organisation that Haughey began to refer to Ahern and his supporters as the Drumcondra Mafia.
The Clontarf Fine Gael TD Richard Bruton was working for his party’s candidate, Mary Banotti, during the by-election. He said Leonard was ‘a decent skin’ but was never a serious contender for a successful political career. Ahern never liked competitors close to him in his constituency, Bruton believes. ‘He followed the old adage that the greatest threat to a sheep was the sheep grazing beside him. He never had any competitive sheep in the same pasture as him!’
Leonard polled very well and won the seat. However, he was never a threat to Ahern’s dominance of the constituency and did not contest the 1987 general election, in which Dr Dermot Fitzpatrick was elected as the second Fianna Fáil TD in the constituency.
As part of his consolidation of his political position, Ahern during these years also established a fund-raising network. The unprecedented series of general elections put a severe strain on the finances of all politicians and political parties. According to Duffy, it was in the early 1980s that people like Des Richardson and Tim Collins, figures who became important money-men in the Ahern organisation, appeared on the scene, though he said he is not clear on the details. Celia Larkin, a full-time civil servant, also got involved. More ambitious fund-raising activities got under way, and a full-time constituency office for Ahern was opened over Fagan’s pub, close to Drumcondra Bridge on the Tolka.
Strangely, there were two parallel financial structures in the constituency: one involved the local elected officers of the party, who came through, and belonged to, the Dublin Central cumann and comhairle structure; the other involved Collins and Richardson, and much larger sums of money. Not only were Richardson and Collins not elected officers of the constituency, accountable to the constituency organisation, they were not even members of the party. They nevertheless became involved in the running of the finances of Ahern’s Dublin Central organisation, which soon became the best-funded constituency organisation in the country. Duffy says:
In some ways in Bertie’s life there were slightly different circles. The people I have mentioned were there from the beginning. Our remit was to always talk politics. Later on there was another, connected circle, in a different context, and that would include Des, Tim Collins; Joe Burke would probably have been in that as well—a business or sort of financial side. But the two of those [circles] never met. There was no connection between the two of them.
Some members of the various factions in Ahern’s set-up were also involved in his social life, which mainly centred on pubs in Drumcondra and Beaumont. Ward bosses, such as the two Paddy Reillys, and key supporters, such as Kitt, Burke and, later, Dermot Carew, would meet Ahern socially in these pubs. Richardson rarely joined them, according to Duffy, who himself had a young family and other interests and also rarely went to the pub with Ahern.
The Labour Party deputy Joan Burton, whose Dublin West constituency adjoins Ahern’s, believes that Ahern was good at asking for money. At the time, political fund-raising was almost entirely unregulated, and Ahern would have been keenly aware of the importance of a war chest in the battle for electoral success. According to Royston Brady, each ward boss was in charge of raising funds from potential targets in their own area, but a percentage would have to be forwarded to Ahern’s constituency operation.
Burton emphasised another aspect of political fund-raising: the effect it has on a politician’s self-esteem.
It is a huge boost to any politician when a range of people come forward and give money. In a way it doesn’t matter if it’s ten euro or ten thousand, but obviously if it is ten thousand . . . There is no politician on earth who is not flattered by people coming forward and saying I would like to support you.
You have this intense sense, in Fianna Fáil, that ‘We are the business, we are doing the business,’ and I think he [Ahern] was very good at that. I think he learned that at the hands of Haughey, and I think he was ruthless about doing it—letting people know that money was expected. I would say he made it very clear that he expected [people] to contribute handsomely.
The decision to open the office above Fagan’s was taken despite the fact that the party had a building in Amiens Street which was available to Ahern and other party figures from his and nearby constituencies. It had been in the party’s ownership for decades. Royston Brady’s father, Ray, a taxi-driver who also played music in pubs, got to know Ahern in the early 1980s and became one of his key supporters. On Saturday mornings Ray Brady would usher in the waiting constituents to see Ahern in an office in the Amiens Street building, and it was at the end of one such morning that Royston Brady, then in his early teens, was first introduced to Ahern. A number of members of the Brady family became Ahern supporters. Royston’s brother Cyprian ran Ahern’s constituency office for twenty years, was appointed to the Seanad by Ahern in 2002 and was elected a TD in Ahern’s constituency in 2007. He was elected on Ahern’s transfers. A sister also worked in St Luke’s.
Brady said from early on he noted that Ahern was very ‘eccentric’ about money, and mean. He said that, during one election in the 1980s, when he was still a teenager, he and a friend, Andrew Farrell, spent polling day handing out Ahern leaflets. They had been promised food, but it failed to materialise, and in the afternoon, when they were famished, his friend confronted Ahern near the Gardiner Street polling station and asked for money. Ahern gave them a fiver, and they went and bought some chips and Cokes in nearby Dorset Street. They had some change and were thinking of using it to buy cigarettes, but when they came round the corner they were confronted by Ahern looking for his change.
Farrell now lives in Arizona, but he confirmed the story when we spoke by phone. He said that he and Royston and Royston’s brothers used to hand out leaflets for Ahern at election time but also between elections,
to let people know that Bertie was still around, still looking out for them. I did it to help Royston out and his dad. And we were thinking also that Bertie might get us in somewhere—get us fixed up with a job—though with me personally that never worked out. I moved away. I think the main reason we were doing it was a good job at the end of it, you know. I think that’s why a lot of people do it. I’d say the majority of people hope to get something
out of it.
He said the only thing he ever got from Ahern was a FÁS job painting the railings around the Stardust Memorial in Coolock.
Farrell confirmed the story about the chips. He said he and the others would begin as early as five in the morning on polling days. They used to call themselves the BBC: Bertie’s Breakfast Crew. In his memory it was not until later in the day, maybe back in St Luke’s, that Ahern asked them for the change. He said his picture was taken that day and ended up in a book called Dubliners, written by Colm Tóibín and with photographs by Tony O’Shea. (Tony has kindly agreed to his photograph of Farrell being reproduced in this book.)
As has already been noted, the Fianna Fáil premises in Amiens Street were sold in 1989 in circumstances that remain unclear. Joe Tierney, a former elected officer of the Comhairle Dáil Ceantair in Dublin Central who remains active in the constituency, said the sale of Amiens Street occurred without the membership being consulted and without the treasurer knowing what happened to the money that was paid.
It should have been put to the floor for a vote. That’s how it should have been done. And the constituency treasurer should have known what happened to the money. But that never happened.
A sense of Ahern’s ambition and drive, as well as of his take on the nature of a political career, was placed on the record in November 1984 when the front-bench spokesperson on labour attended a party conference in the Gresham Hotel organised for female would-be local election candidates. Haughey also attended, but it was the address from Ahern that was given prominence in Denis Coughlan’s report for the Irish Times. ‘Bertie tells FF women: sell your soul’, read the headline. His view was fairly grim.
Keep your balance. Keep well in with everybody. Say hello to your local TDs and councillors even if you hate them, and you might get nominated at your local convention. You have to walk the line, take the middle ground. You may hate your TDs but you must do what is required. We all have to swallow humble pie, and I have been doing it for years, but if you keep at it you can break through and get selected to the convention.
If you do it the other way, you haven’t a chance. And if getting there means selling your soul a little bit, there isn’t a profession in the world where you don’t have to change your principles. If you play it right and keep your balance, you can get to the convention.
Ahern told the women there was a built-in antipathy towards women in Fianna Fáil and expressed the view that the National Executive could do more to ensure that good candidates were selected at local conventions. Once through the convention, all candidates, be they men or women, ‘have to take all the nonsense, the hard talk, the face-to-face and door-to-door criticism, while taking your own stand on particular issues.’ The last point was an alternative take on his frequently expressed view that what he loved most was going out and meeting the people in his constituency, though, in fairness, it may well be that the delivery made the address amusing. Ahern has a great gift for humour.
The Gresham meeting was in preparation for the 1985 local election. Ahern’s breakthrough into national prominence came from his position as a councillor rather than that of a deputy. He first got a seat on Dublin City Council when he replaced Jim Tunney in 1977. He contested and won the 1979 local election and topped the poll. In the 1985 local election the party’s National Executive added him to the ticket after Stafford and others joined forces locally and outvoted Ahern’s selection for the north inner-city ward. Ahern fought a hard battle against Tony Gregory in the campaign and took great pleasure in coming out on top. Fianna Fáil generally did well, with Ahern’s brother Noel being among the new councillors elected. Ahern became the party leader in the council chamber and in 1987 was appointed Lord Mayor of Dublin, succeeding Tunney.
He threw himself into the role and seemed to accept just about every local and national invitation that came into his office. (He had no interest in any foreign engagements that arose, and his Artane neighbour Joe Burke, who had also been elected a councillor and was Ahern’s Deputy Lord Mayor, usually travelled for him.) Ahern began to apply to the citywide, and indeed national, stage the insight and practice he had developed locally. His work rate was phenomenal and was part and parcel of an attitude whereby everything was a form of canvassing. The public took to the image of the somewhat tousle-haired ‘true Dub’ devoted to politics and public life, and from this period on Ahern lived his life in the full glare of the media. He became a public figure, even a political celebrity, with the media focused to an unusual extent on his appearance and character rather than on the substance of his work.
It was during this period, when he was living in the Mansion House, that Miriam Lord of the Irish Times began to write about him regularly.
He was so welcoming, so nice, but he was always a bit of a mess, always real dishevelled. Senan Molony wrote a great piece at the time in the Herald. He was leaving a gig in the Mansion House, and he looked in the back of the Lord Mayor’s car and it was filthy with crisp packets and old papers and so on, and he wrote a piece, the headline was ‘Poor Old Dirty Bertie’.
As already noted, at about this time Celia Larkin became more involved in the administration of the Ahern machine. What began as a close role as a supporter changed during the period 1982–7 into an intimate relationship, and by the time Ahern moved into the Mansion House his marriage was coming to an end. Ahern’s drive and focus was such that he had developed a life-style for himself in which everything else took a back seat to his political ambition. In his memoirs he wrote that he was torn between continuing his career in politics and accepting an opportunity he said he had to become chief executive of the Mater Private Hospital, while continuing to do freelance tax consultancy work. He saw the choice as one between politics and money. With hindsight, he wrote, it was in fact a choice between politics and family.
Chapter 7
MINISTER
Bertie Ahern met Ruairí Quinn in the members’ bar in Leinster House on a night soon after the 1987 general election that brought Haughey and Fianna Fáil back into power. Quinn, who, like Ahern, had been first elected to the Dáil in 1977, was considered by many to be closer to Ahern than most opposition politicians, and indeed closer than most deputies from Ahern’s own party. When Quinn was Minister for Labour during the 1982–7 Government, Ahern had marked him as Fianna Fáil spokesperson on labour. When Ahern was appointed opposition spokesperson Quinn sent him a copy of the briefing document he had been given when he was appointed minister. He felt Ahern had a right to it. The two men worked well together, and in his memoirs Ahern is generous in his praise of Quinn and in the regard he has for him.
According to Quinn, in 1987 they discussed Ahern’s position. Ahern told him that Haughey was thinking of appointing him Minister for Health. ‘I said, “Are you out of your mind? Look at what has to be done. You’ve shadowed labour, you know the territory.”’ Not long afterwards Ahern was appointed Minister for Labour. It was an appointment that greatly suited him and that placed him at the heart of the establishment of the social partnership process—a development recognised by many as a key contributor to the subsequent Irish boom.
After Ahern’s appointment, he and Quinn met at the Coq Hardi restaurant in Ballsbridge, a favourite of Haughey’s in those years, to discuss Ahern’s takeover at the department. Ahern asked if there were any projects in the department that Quinn wanted finished, and Quinn briefed him on the work he had been doing. According to Quinn, Ahern ran with the policies and plans that Quinn had already put in place and initiated very little himself by way of legislative change.
Quinn said in all his dealings with Ahern he found him to be very matter of fact, with ‘no sides’.
I never got any sense from him that he had any great political ideas or any projects he wanted to do. To this day I don’t know what he stands for. I haven’t the slightest idea. He basically seems to me to be the ultimate chameleon.
Because of sharp cutbacks in Government spending overseen by the Minister for Finance
, Ray MacSharry, there was a period of intense industrial unrest. Ahern maintained a high profile within Leinster House and outside it as he became associated with the settling of a series of important disputes. Some of his core skills were particularly useful in this regard: his toughness, his ability to make people feel he was sympathetic to them, his capacity for absorbing detail, his concealment of any view or position he himself might have on matters, his patience and his capacity for work. The unions saw him as someone they could do business with.
Ahern developed a reputation as a successful mediator and as someone with a record of successful interventions in seemingly intractable industrial disputes, often carried out in the early hours of the morning. In his memoirs, writing about Northern Ireland, Ahern made the point that participants always prefer agreements if they are arrived at in the hours after midnight. He also took a swipe at employers, who, he said, tended to cave in the minute industrial action was taken and immediately want the Government to settle the dispute.
Pat Rabbitte, a trade union official before he became a full-time politician, believes that the image Ahern created during this period—a friend of the trade unions and a skilled mediator—was just another example of the serial misrepresentation that marked his political career.
He made so much of his trade union contacts which were largely nonexistent. He used to put it about that he was a shop steward for the Workers’ Union of Ireland, prominent in its machinery, a trade unionist first. There was no basis for that. In reality, if he ever held a union card it was only briefly and it was only to have the card. He had a minimal role as an activist, but he used that to develop a very good relationship with the trade unions, especially during the Haughey years. They were the years of the anorak and the long hair. He developed a relationship with, for example, Billy Attley [former SIPTU general secretary]. He was never quite so close to the Transport Union, as it was at the time. There were a number of celebrated industrial disputes down those years. People like Des Geraghty will tell you. Take the engineers or the electricians: Bertie always had someone inside who would keep him in touch with how things were going, and he would arrive just as the breakthrough was happening, and he would be there to take the kudos after the all-night session. He had an uncanny knack for that.