Bertie

by Colm Keena

  The engagement with the republicans was a fraught one for a democratic Government, as the Provisionals continued to run an illegal and murderous militia. Ahern’s extraordinary ability to project feelings of sympathy and understanding stood him in good stead, as did his legendary patience. As Ruairí Quinn noted, ‘he has this skill to be able to spend so much time on people and to accommodate them and to take so much boredom. I mean, God knows, to have spent so much time listening to Gerry Adams for all those years.’

  Ahern’s interest in, and feeling for, republicanism helped him get on with the Provisionals, and no doubt his father’s history and political outlook played a role in this. In his memoirs Ahern said he had gone to the British embassy on the night it was burned down after the Bloody Sunday killings in Derry in January 1972. He said some of his friends had joined the IRA after the killings, and he obviously intended to give the impression that he sympathised with their decision.

  When Ahern became Taoiseach he immediately immersed himself in the effort to conclude a deal in Northern Ireland. He had met the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, during the former’s period as leader of the opposition, and they had hit it off. Rabbitte noted the close relationship that developed between Ahern and Blair.

  It was extraordinary that he met a similar character in Blair. Blair was the quintessential Englishman, albeit born in Scotland. He too was an exhibitionist, a performer above all else. An exceptional performer. But as Robin Cook [former British Cabinet member] said to me—we had breakfast here [in the Dáil] one morning after he spoke to our [Labour Party] conference—and I asked him, ‘What is Blair like?’ and he said, ‘Well, the first thing you have to recall is, he is not one of us.’ Meaning he was not a Labour politician, in the sense that Robin Cook or Gordon Brown or Michael Foot, or so on was. He was a tremendous public performer, and he had this smiling affability, and he and Bertie took to each other as soul brothers.

  In the first weekend of April 1998 Ahern returned from an Asia-Europe summit in England, raced to a constituency Mass in Cabra and went on to bed. The next morning he went to St Luke’s and from there to Government Buildings for a meeting with a delegation from the SDLP. It was while there that he got a call to say that his mother, Julia, had suffered a heart attack and had been rushed to the Mater. He spent time at her bedside before she died on the Monday morning without having regained consciousness.

  Julia Ahern was buried in the republican plot in Glasnevin Cemetery, beside her husband, Con. The graveside service was nearing its end when Ahern had to leave to travel to Belfast to attend the talks in Hillsborough Castle. When he arrived the waiting journalists put down their microphones and cameras and expressed their sympathies. The atmosphere inside the building was intense, with side meetings going on here, there and everywhere and with the participants including some of the most unsavoury people on the island. At one point, according to Ahern, he was in a room with some loyalists and republicans when one of the former turned to him and said they had worked out that he was the only person in the room who hadn’t killed anyone.

  Agreement was eventually reached on Friday 10 April. It was Good Friday, and the news was greeted with elation throughout Ireland and was reported around the globe. Ahern signed ‘the Belfast Agreement signed on Good Friday’ wearing a black tie. On his way back in from Dublin Airport his car drove past Church Avenue just as it had a week earlier when his mother had still been alive. He subsequently appeared on ‘The Late Late Show’, where he spoke about the difficult negotiations leading up to the agreement and of his having to persist with the effort in the midst of grieving for his mother.

  His ratings in an opinion poll in the Irish Times later that month were the highest he was ever to achieve and the highest achieved by any Taoiseach in recent times. The survey found that he had a satisfaction rating of 84 per cent. This was well ahead of the best scores ever recorded for Haughey (67 per cent), FitzGerald (63 per cent) and Reynolds (63 per cent). Fine Gael and Labour Party supporters were more behind Ahern than the population as a whole had ever been behind those former Taoisigh. Three-quarters of the respondents from both parties said they were satisfied with Ahern’s performance. The historic breakthrough in the North was the main factor behind this unprecedented level of support, coupled as it was with—as Ahern was to put it in a later context—the fact that the Irish boom was ‘getting boomier’.

  According to Joan Burton, Ahern’s success in the North added to his power.

  He gained, understandably and deservedly, massive international respect and massive national respect out of the whole Good Friday thing. He had, then, vastly enhanced powers. As he was held in enormous respect, he could do more. It added a vast new dimension to his power. Once he had done that, then he was dealing on an equal basis with Blair and with Bill Clinton, and that added hugely to his aura. I don’t know if that emboldened him then to move further away from the public interest and feel much more powerful in responding to vested interests. I suspect it did.

  Rabbitte believed that people such as the Northern loyalists must have been very impressed by Ahern’s informality and apparent willingness to treat them with respect. Politicians such as Dick Spring and John Bruton could not be imagined treating the loyalists with the sort of informal affability that is ‘the essence of Ahernism’, Rabbitte said. The ending of the violence and the achievement of a political accord ‘lifted a huge pall of gloom that had been over the island for almost four decades and fed into the optimism concerning Ireland’s economic future. Bertie saw that.’

  As the 1990s came to a close, few could remember the doubts that people had had a few years earlier about Ahern’s suitability for high office. Concerns about his ability were buried by his success in the North, by photo-calls and reported phone calls with his friends Tony Blair and Bill Clinton and, most of all, by the ubiquitous signs of increasing national wealth. As the economy grew, house prices rose steadily and became a staple of media reporting and general conversation. Those who owned property were buoyed up by thoughts of the increase in their nominal wealth. The number of unemployed was rapidly decreasing, emigration by young people in search of employment was coming to an end, and former emigrants were beginning to return. The international press and economic monitoring agencies were writing about Ireland and its transformation from ‘the poorest of the rich’ to being at the top of the European economic league table. A great sense of confidence spread through the country, and the Government made every effort to claim the credit. Ahern maintained a very high profile in the media but at the same time tightly controlled his exposure. He was a master of delivering sound-bites as he entered or left a building for an official function, which would then be used to top news reports on whatever the story of the day was. He rarely gave extended media interviews. His Dáil performances continued to be workmanlike, and he organised it so that he had to spend less time there than previous Taoisigh.

  His great political achievement was to create the impression that he and his Government had delivered economic prosperity. For Richard Bruton, Ahern was lucky in his political career and lucky in the timing of his first appointment to the position of Taoiseach. The tax cuts introduced in 1998 and subsequent years boosted an already growing economy and the increasing amount of money available for personal expenditure. Given the long lead-in to the conditions of the boom it was self-evident that the tax cuts were not the reason for the economic prosperity; yet, by constant references to tax cuts, increases in public expenditure and economic statistics, the Government and Ahern in particular managed to associate themselves in the public mind with the country’s evident good fortune. To claim responsibility for positive developments, and to disown unwanted developments, is a constant of politics; but the creation by Ahern and his Government of an association between the tax cuts and the boom was to prove a particularly important one.

  Ahern worked hard at capitalising on the hugely positive economic conditions within which his Government was operating. Arguably the Go
vernment was poor at anything for which it had direct responsibility—reform of the public service, upgrading water-delivery systems, urban planning, transport, health—but it successfully trumped all these failings by assuming responsibility for economic growth. Ahern, according to Richard Bruton, simply avoided difficult questions when they were put to him in the Dáil.

  If you asked him four or five hard questions, or a question that had four or five parts, he would pick up the part of the question that he could most use, and waffle. Pat Rabbitte tried very hard to question him forensically, and at times he succeeded, but other times Pat Rabbitte just ended up in a rage. I found it, when trying to question him about tax stuff or about the economy, Bertie’s first tactic would be to agree with you. And agree with you extensively, worry about it, empathise about it, and by the time he’d finished with that, sure [there was no time left].

  Miriam Lord, in her Dáil sketches, noted Ahern’s delivery of answers and speeches that were lists of statistics, and how, when unquestionable Government failures were being discussed, Ahern might chew on his fist and then express sympathy with the views of the Government critic and bafflement as to how those who were in charge could be so inept.

  Getting the public to associate the economic success a country is experiencing with your government, and with you yourself, is far from being an inconsiderable achievement for a politician, and it is one that is recognised by Ahern’s political opponents. ‘He had marvellous insights,’ said Rabbitte.

  Bertie had a great capacity to see around corners. He must have had some very good people behind him too, because he captured the zeitgeist of the times very well. That period from 1994 to 2000 was a period of tremendous achievement and hope for this country. It is not a partisan point to make to say that when the rainbow Government handed over it was generally regarded as a good government and a fair government, and Bertie didn’t much alter that when he took over, it seemed, initially. He was going to maintain an equilibrium, and the extraordinary growth continued right through to the wobble in 2001, and he did manage virtually to obliterate the role of the previous Government, and to have ascribed to himself the extraordinary economic expansion that continued, and to have attributed to Fianna Fáil the period of the boom. People believed that on the high street, associated it with him, and unlike Brian Cowen [his successor as Taoiseach] he was always positive, upbeat, optimistic. It coincided with the Northern Ireland settlement. That added a great deal of lustre to Bertie. He became a statesman. His skills were very suited to that.

  Ahern was far from being the type of public representative who suddenly begins appearing on people’s doorsteps once an election has been called. A Friday evening knock on the door on a winter’s night, with election day years away, was not at all an unusual event, even when Ahern was Taoiseach. One Friday evening he knocked on this writer’s door, looking particularly well dressed. The next day’s newspapers featured photographs of him attending a meeting of EU leaders in Bonn.

  As well as recognising the importance of canvassing in winning votes, Ahern appeared to like it and to draw encouragement and energy from it. Once in the Taoiseach’s office he transferred his practice in Dublin Central to the national stage. For the entire period of his first Government he devoted all the Thursdays and Fridays he could to canvassing, subjecting himself to schedules that would exhaust a younger man.

  Opposition is always a difficult task, but in the late 1990s the circumstances confronting Fine Gael and the Labour Party were particularly challenging. Pat Rabbitte cites the halving of the capital gains tax rate as an example of the difficulties his party faced. The Labour Party opposed the cut, arguing that it was an inequitable measure and one that meant that labour was being taxed at a much higher rate than dealing in assets. However, a result of the cut was that capital gains tax receipts to the exchequer shot up. When the Labour Party complained, Ahern and McCreevy would cite the improved exchequer figures for the tax, trumping the equity issue with the size of the figures. For Rabbitte,

  it was perfectly logical that the yield would shoot up, because there was so much pent-up demand in a growing economy and so many guys prepared to cash in their chips. So there was an initial flood of money. And, you know, it made it difficult.

  Attacking the cut should have been an easy one for the Labour Party, but, ‘confronted with the reality of dollops of cash coming in,’ the criticism failed to find traction.

  For Rabbitte the cut in the tax was the beginning of the property boom. ‘That flood of money, and the property speculation that would henceforward only be taxed at the lower rate—that was the beginning of the property, speculative boom that took off.’ Ruairí Quinn agreed. He believed that the 40 per cent rate may have been too high and contributed to a building up of capital that people did not want to release. The sudden halving of the tax, however, ‘just triggered an avalanche of cash into the economy.’ The problem for the opposition was that—even though, for a country dependent on exports, a sharp rise in the cost of housing is a negative development—this wasn’t how it felt to the general public. Most, even if they were still on very modest salaries, were dazzled by the increase in value of their homes.

  The partnership agreements also created a difficulty for the Labour Party. Sometimes when Rabbitte adopted positions in the Dáil concerning the Government’s tax cuts, he found himself at odds with positions taken up by the unions. On occasion he was contacted by trade union leaders, who complained that his party was embarrassing them in front of their members. On balance, according to Rabbitte, social partnership was good for the trade union movement but bad for the Labour Party. Trade union leaders’ speeches included repeated attacks on the ‘PD wing’ of the Ahern Government and calls for that wing to be driven out, Rabbitte said. ‘They never attacked Bertie.’

  For Richard Bruton the problem for the opposition was that it had to criticise the Government’s economic policies when those same policies were putting more money into people’s pockets and supplying increased services to members of the public. ‘Nobody likes a Jeremiah.’ In his opinion, the cut in capital gains tax was not the core cause of the later property bubble, though it was a contributory factor. The real error was the unleashing of public expenditure in the latter stage of Ahern’s first Government.

  McCreevy went in the face of the election for having a grossly irresponsible growth in public expenditure. I remember looking at 24 months, and he had increased spending by about 45 per cent. The notion that you could increase public spending by 45 per cent over 24 months was just incredible, but that’s what he did. There seemed to have been a sudden decision, ‘It’s party time, the election is coming up.’ He went for this homespun notion: when we have money we spend it. I think it was then the cost base started to go seriously awry. This massive increase in public expenditure, into the teeth of a strong economy already close to capacity, definitely set the environment for [public-sector] benchmarking which followed quickly on its tail. You had a huge increase in the pay bill. It put pressure on the construction sector. It started the whole rot.

  One of the threats that Ahern faced during his first term of office was the possibility that his public image would be dented by what was emerging from the Dublin Castle tribunals, both in his association with the past actions of people such as Haughey and, more directly, because of his own activities. When he appeared before the Moriarty Tribunal to give evidence in July 1999 and June 2000, the intensity with which he fielded questions from tribunal counsel John Coughlan SC was striking. There was an atmosphere of tension in the room that few other witnesses who appeared there over the years managed to create and that bordered on being menacing.

  The tribunal’s inquiries into Haughey disclosed that he had made personal use of the Fianna Fáil party leader’s account. Not only had he lodged to the account money given to him by others but he had also dipped into funds that had been raised to pay for medical treatment in the United States for his long-time friend and political colleague Brian L
enihan and which had been lodged to the account. Withdrawals were by way of cheque. Two signatures were needed, and the main signatory after Haughey was Ahern.

  Ahern had become a signatory at the time of his being appointed party chief whip. It was party practice for the chief whip to be assigned that role, though when Ahern moved on from that position he remained a signatory. Haughey had decided that he should do so. Ray MacSharry was also a signatory but was rarely involved. The account was first drawn to the attention of the tribunal by a cheque for £25,000 that was lodged to Guinness and Mahon Bank, the bank where Des Traynor ran his Ansbacher deposits operation. The cheque was dated 16 June 1989, the day after the general election of that year, and it was signed by Ahern and Haughey. The tribunal’s inquiry into the use of the account proved labyrinthine, with no fewer than forty-five witnesses being called, some on more than one occasion.

  A suggestion that Haughey had improperly used the party leader’s account arose in 1997 after the McCracken Tribunal had reported and as the Oireachtas was in the process of establishing its successor. Spring raised the matter in the Dáil, but Ahern assured the chamber that the account had not been misused.

  I am satisfied, having spoken to the person who administered the account, that it was used for bona fide party purposes, that the cheques were prepared by that person and countersigned by another senior party member. There was no surplus and no misappropriation. The account, as far as her excellent recollection goes, was normally short, not the other way around. I have spoken to her at some length.