by Colm Keena
The tensions within the coalition and within Leinster House reached hysterical proportions, with rumours flying and with a growing conviction that the Government was about to fall. At one point Pat Rabbitte referred in the Dáil to a new revelation that would ‘rock the foundations of the state.’ This never emerged, but the coalition Government did sunder. Reynolds resigned as Taoiseach and party leader, saying he did not want to do anything that might destabilise the fledgling Northern Ireland peace process. Ahern replaced him as party leader. Máire Geoghegan-Quinn had thrown her hat in the ring in an attempt to win the leadership but withdrew before a vote, and Ahern was appointed unopposed.
The Dáil was not dissolved. Reynolds remained as acting Taoiseach as Ahern worked to see if he could negotiate a new coalition with Spring. Matters progressed to the extent that a draft list of ministers in the new Government was agreed between them. According to Sparks, Spring and Ahern got on well, and a Labour Party-Fianna Fáil coalition with Ahern as Taoiseach might have worked well. Ahern, in his memoirs, wrote that he was very angry that the Reynolds Government had been allowed to collapse in the way it did, because of the amount of good work he believed the Government was achieving. Going on his subsequent attitude to presiding over a coalition Government, it is fair to presume that, if a Government had been formed, Ahern would have used his considerable political skills to maintain good relations with the Labour Party.
Sparks said he had a very good experience working with Ahern and with Ahern’s adviser, Gerry Hickey. Ahern, as Minister for Finance, had agreed to the establishment of a tax strategy group, which came up with policies based on a more long-term view of taxation policy. The work of this group also, for the first time, involved the Revenue Commissioners being consulted on changes to the tax code. Sparks felt that Ahern had taken a political risk in supporting Labour Party policy on a residential property tax. ‘That blew up in his face. There was fierce opposition.’ However, he said it showed that Ahern was ready to take political risks for policies he believed in.
Sparks felt Ahern was determined to work with the Labour Party and was essentially sympathetic to many of his coalition partners’ ambitions. From his dealings with Ahern, Sparks felt that he did not have strong political convictions and that this made him receptive to the arguments of others.
Fianna Fáil is not a policy-driven party. Bertie was more the type of person who is open to views being given to him and being selective as to whether they were runners or not. I think it is his strength and ended up becoming his weakness.
It was while Ahern was negotiating a new coalition deal and his first Government with Spring that he was involved in his dealings with Michael Wall concerning the house in Beresford Avenue. It appears that, having become party leader unexpectedly early, Ahern was bounced into dealing with his unresolved living arrangements. The need to have a home became an immediate political imperative.
The Mahon Tribunal was later told that the house was selected by Michael Wall and Celia Larkin. Michael Wall, a squat, bearded Irish emigrant with a successful coach business in Manchester, said that he selected the house because it was near the airport and he was considering setting up a new business in Dublin. The solicitor who acted in the purchase of the house was Ahern’s solicitor, Gerry Brennan, and later Brennan drafted a will for Michael Wall that would have left the house to Ahern. (If Ahern predeceased Michael Wall, it would be left to Ahern’s daughters.) It was for this and other reasons that the tribunal investigated whether or not Michael Wall was in fact acting as a nominee for Ahern when the house was purchased in Michael Wall’s name.
Michael Wall travelled from Manchester to Dublin two-and-a-half weeks after Ahern became leader of Fianna Fáil, carrying a briefcase filled with cash, which, he told the tribunal, he had taken from his office safe. He said he did not know exactly how much was in it but that it was approximately £30,000 sterling, though it might have included some Irish currency. He said he went to the Ashling Hotel near Heuston Station, checked in, took some cash from the briefcase, put it in his hotel wardrobe and went off to the Royal Hospital nearby for the annual fund-raising dinner for Ahern. The dinner was usually attended by more than three hundred people, and there must have been a particularly excited atmosphere on that night, as everyone expected that Ahern would be anointed Taoiseach the following Tuesday.
On Saturday afternoon Michael Wall went up to St Luke’s, where he and Ahern adjourned to Ahern’s office. Michael Wall said he put the briefcase on the office table and told Ahern it was for the renovation of the house in Beresford Avenue. None of those who gave evidence on the matter expressed the view that there was anything bizarre or troubling about a prospective Taoiseach being given a briefcase full of cash in this way. The tribunal was told that Larkin came in bearing tea. There were bundles of cash on the table, and Ahern was going back and forth with handfuls of it, bringing it to a safe in a back room. Again there was no mention at the tribunal of Larkin expressing shock or concern at what she saw. Ahern said he put the money into his safe without counting it or discussing with Michael Wall how much was there. Given that everyone believed that Ahern was on the cusp of becoming Taoiseach, this has to count as the most bizarre testimony given to any of the tribunals.
Ahern had to catch an early flight to Brussels on the Monday morning to attend a meeting of European finance ministers. He told the tribunal that he left the briefcase in his office in St Luke’s for Larkin so that she could bring it and its contents to the O’Connell Street branch of the AIB. She told the tribunal that she lodged the money without looking inside the briefcase or counting it. By this version of events, no-one knew how much was in it when it was handed to the branch official for lodgement.
On the Sunday of that weekend Geraldine Kennedy, the political correspondent of the Irish Times, was at home preparing lunch for some friends when she had a conversation on the phone with the paper’s editor, Conor Brady. They discussed the Brendan Smith extradition controversy, and Brady expressed the view that there was still some digging to be done in relation to the story. Kennedy abandoned her lunch plans and began making calls. By that evening she had gathered the material for what became the next morning’s front-page lead. Ahern read the story while on his way to Dublin Airport. When he rang Dublin upon his arrival in Brussels he was told that the story had taken off and that there was a renewed sense of crisis in the corridors of Leinster House.
Kennedy’s story described a new and different sequence of events concerning the matters that had led to Reynolds having to resign and that created serious concerns within the Labour Party as to whether or not it could trust Fianna Fáil. To reassure the Labour Party, Ahern needed to get a copy of a report concerning the crisis written by the new Attorney-General, Eoghan Fitzsimons, so he could give it to Spring. But Reynolds was still Taoiseach, and Fitzsimons felt that he needed the approval of the Taoiseach before he could hand it over. Reynolds was in Budapest. According to Sparks, Reynolds refused to take the calls he was getting from Ahern. ‘It was very interesting. Back and forth. Back and forth.’
A different version of this story appears in One Spin on the Merry-Go-Round (1995), Seán Duignan’s account, based on his diary, of his time as Reynolds’s press officer. He recounted that Fitzsimons’s report was at first faxed to the wrong hotel in Budapest. It arrived too late for Reynolds to see it and have it sent to Ahern before Reynolds addressed a session of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. After his speech, according to Duignan, Reynolds went through the Fitzsimons report line by line before finally sending it on to Ahern. The report confirmed the new sequence of events reported by Geraldine Kennedy (though Duignan said the information in Kennedy’s report would already have been known to the Labour Party).
Even when he got back to Dublin and to Government Buildings, Ahern wasn’t able to satisfactorily settle the dispute with Spring. He met his party ministers and discussed the crisis but could not find a way to stop matters unravelling. After midnight he l
eft Government Buildings and made his way back to St Luke’s. At 2 a.m. the phone rang. It was Spring. The conversation was short and to the point: the Labour Party was pulling out of the coalition.
The Reynolds Government fell, and Ahern’s efforts to form a new arrangement with the Labour Party also fell, because of the controversy concerning the extradition of Brendan Smith and the appointment of Harry Whelehan to the High Court. There is no suggestion at all that anyone in Fianna Fáil was trying to shield Smith. The affair had to do with trust rather than any definite event or policy difference; yet it was a watershed in recent Irish history. In his memoirs Ahern said he was sorry that the relationship with the Labour Party soured, since there had been the possibility of a realignment in Irish politics. Sparks thinks the Labour Party and Fianna Fáil could have got on very well. ‘I do think if Dick and Bertie had been able to come to an agreement, the way politics would have developed over the next fifteen years would have been totally different.’
Ahern came within a hair’s breadth of forming his first Government as Taoiseach with the Labour Party as his coalition partner. Because that didn’t happen, and because the Labour Party ended up going into coalition with Fine Gael and Democratic Left, Ahern tilted to the other side of the political spectrum and teamed up with Mary Harney and the PDs. This had enormous and arguably decisive implications for the political management of the Irish boom.
Chapter 8
TAOISEACH, 1997–2002
On 26 June 1997 Bertie Ahern stood to address the chamber after the members of the 28th Dáil had elected him Taoiseach. At forty-five he was the youngest politician ever to be elected to the position. In the gallery were his two daughters, his mother, other family members and his long-time supporters. ‘I assure the wider public that I have an honour which has been bestowed on only a handful of people,’ Ahern said.
It carries responsibility and is a job at which a person must work extremely hard. I like working hard, but this job is harder than any other, and I look forward to it. Having spent twenty years here, and having had an interest in politics since a very young age, it is hard to put into words the honour of this position. The only way I can repay it is to work every hour of every day to show I merit it. I will do that on behalf of my party, the Dáil and the people of the country.
The other party leaders, as is customary, wished Ahern well, as they did the members of the Dáil who were going to form Ahern’s first Government: Charlie McCreevy (Finance), Mary Harney (Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment), Dermot Ahern (Social, Community and Family Affairs), David Andrews (Defence), Noel Dempsey (Environment and Local Government), Micheál Martin (Education), Ray Burke (Foreign Affairs), Joe Walsh (Agriculture and Food), Síle de Valera (Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands), John O’Donoghue (Justice, Equality and Law Reform), Jim McDaid (Tourism, Sport and Recreation), Brian Cowen (Health and Children), Mary O’Rourke (Public Enterprise) and Michael Woods (Marine and Natural Resources).
The Attorney-General was David Byrne sc, the barrister who some weeks earlier had helped Ahern with the document concerning the ownership of St Luke’s. Byrne’s appointment occurred despite efforts by Harney to have Michael McDowell, who had lost his seat in Dublin South-East by a small number of votes, appointed to the position.
Ahern’s first Government was an effective one, according to Micheál Martin. Ahern would
have a lot of work done before cabinet, in terms of bilaterals with ministers, and between ministers and the Minister for Finance, and himself, before cabinet, and that was effective. The first Government was a particularly successful Government. I think it did a lot of good work. I think it had a lot of energy, and Ahern was on top of most issues.
Fianna Fáil’s performance in the election was in fact the second-worst in its history. (The worst was in 1992, under Reynolds.) The share of the national votes in 1997 was 39.33 per cent, compared with 39.11 per cent in 1992. Ahern’s popularity rating before the election was only slightly ahead of those of John Bruton and Dick Spring. Harney was the most popular political leader going into the election but had a disastrous campaign. Fianna Fáil’s improved vote management meant that it gained more seats than it did votes. It entered the 28th Dáil with an extra 9 seats, or 77 in all (83 was needed for a bare majority). The PDs won only 4, compared with the 10 with which they had entered the campaign. Fine Gael did well, winning an extra 7 seats, but the bottom fell out of the Labour Party’s support: it lost 16 seats and entered the Dáil with only 17 TDs. Fianna Fáil could have negotiated a stable coalition with the Labour Party, but Ahern chose instead to create a coalition Government with the PDs that was dependent on the support of independents. According to the political journalist Pat Leahy, many senior figures in the party still felt very sore about how they had been treated by the Labour Party in 1994.
Ahern had thrown himself into the job of leader of the opposition with his trademark capacity for long hours and herculean effort. He managed to mend much of the damage caused by the internal party rifts that had persisted through the Haughey years and the damage to morale that had come with the unexpected loss of power in 1994. But in relation to parliamentary performance and the holding of the Government to account he was not perceived as being particularly successful. He also struggled with his media image. Power automatically brings media focus, but as leader of the opposition a politician has to win positive coverage by sharp criticism and by the creation of the impression that they would make a better Taoiseach.
It was Pat Rabbitte’s view in the mid-1990s that Ahern did not have what was required to be a party leader. He held this view despite having a high regard for Ahern’s ability and having been a spokesperson on labour and finance, respectively, when Ahern had been Minister for Labour and Minister for Finance. ‘I had a lot of regard for his capacity, for his diligence in terms of doing his homework. He had an extraordinarily single-minded, purposeful approach to politics.’ Nevertheless, the notion of Ahern being Taoiseach was regarded in the Dáil as ‘somewhat risible’, according to Rabbitte.
This was in part because of the image Ahern had created over the previous twenty years. The image of the plain man, with the ordinary tastes, the ‘Howa yez, lads?’ ordinary Dub. The friend of the trade unions, the bedraggled appearance, the long hair. He just didn’t look leader material. It is an awful job anyway, but he was poor. He was no match intellectually for John Bruton. Not that Bertie wasn’t a very bright man, a very intelligent man: he was. But in terms of parliamentary wingcraft, allied to some intellectual substance about convictions in politics, he wasn’t a match for Bruton.
For Rabbitte, it was only when being in office brought the lustre of Taoiseach to his persona that Ahern became a credible leader.
The hair was cut, a personal make-up artist was maintained, the presentation was practised, and he became a different man entirely to when he was leader of the opposition during the rainbow Government.
Ahern’s preparations for the 1997 general election included efforts to distance himself from the low standards of the Haughey era, which were then being pried into by the McCracken (Dunne’s Payments) Tribunal. He told the delegates to the April 1997 ard-fheis that there would be
no place in our party today for that kind of past behaviour, no matter how eminent the person involved or the extent of their services to the country . . . Even if in the particular instance there were no favours sought or given we could not condone the practice of senior politicians seeking or receiving from a single donor large sums of money or services in kind.
No-one who betrayed the public trust was welcome in the party. ‘I say this with every fibre of my being.’
The way Ahern set out to change his image impressed Joan Burton.
I take my hat off to him. He improved his speech. That showed a massive amount of dedication. And he was lucky with having Celia Larkin. I have no doubt that she did his makeover. That was tremendously important.
Ahern went from being a rough
-looking, not well-dressed politician to being a contender for the title of best-dressed Taoiseach. Burton said, ‘I think people like that. I think people like people in high public office dressing appropriately for the job.’
According to Richard Bruton, it is important not to attach too much significance to what Ahern did before achieving power. He recalled a black poster in the 1997 campaign that had Ahern staring out of the gloom. After the campaign it was praised for being a masterful image, but if Fianna Fáil had not managed to get back into Government people would have been criticising the poster. ‘Nothing succeeds like success.’
Within months of Ahern coming to power he found himself forced to establish two tribunals of inquiry: one (Moriarty) to look into payments to Michael Lowry and Charles Haughey; the other (Flood, later Mahon) to look into corruption in the planning process in Dublin. Meanwhile, news stories about payments to Ray Burke put Ahern under increasing pressure and raised questions about his decision to appoint him a minister in the first place. Ahern was later forced to ask the Flood Tribunal to investigate Burke’s finances. A furious Burke resigned not only from the Government but from the Dáil. The media and the opposition watched to see if Burke’s rage would lead to any scandals about Ahern coming to public attention.
For Rabbitte, Ahern’s establishment of the Moriarty and Flood Tribunals meant that he was a member of the Government while inquiries were under way that might discover some of the skeletons in his own cupboard.
Very, very few politicians in Leinster House would have been able to carry around in their stomach what Bertie Ahern carried around during his period as leader. He knew these things, we didn’t know them, and he was always alert to [the danger]. That’s why Ray Burke resigned. Bertie had promised Ray Burke that there would be no tribunal, no matter what happened; and then events, dear boy, happened, and he conceded a tribunal and Burke went mad and resigned on the spot from the House as well as the Government. Burke had a few real set-tos with Bertie, because they knew a lot about each other, and Bertie harboured these things and performed swimmingly as Taoiseach. Very few members of Dáil Éireann would have been able to do that [knowing that Burke was out there] and knowing himself about some of his own dealings, and so on. It was for that reason that he sometimes became tight-lipped and wary, in that fashion, because he was trying to figure out [what to say or do].