Bertie - a miscellany!

statesman                 the decent skin                             sad

So bye-bye then, Bertie. I will not miss you.

He is a nice man but that’s not nearly enough. Apart from his dodgy bank transactions, his immediate coterie of buddies was linked to the building industry in ways that compromised him. That made it impossible that he would ever back reform of the planning of this country so that it would come to serve the public interest and the national quality of life, rather than the interests of the bowsies in the tent at the Galway Races and of the property-owning Fianna-Fail (and Fine Gael)-voting elite.

I hope that along with the images of him smiling crookedly - but always warmly - behind his pint, we retain the image of Grainne Carruth battling loyally to defend him at the tribunal, battling against the tears, battling to go home.

Dodginess has its victims.

Even Cowen can only be an improvement, surely.

MODUS OPERANDI

He was definitely Chairman more than Chief, though over the last few years, when the idea that he may be charismatic took root, and there was even a suspicion of a swagger, he was spun as leading from the front with everyone else in Fianna Fail part of “Bertie’s Team”. But essentially he was a facilitator rather than a trail-blazer: for example, talking to women FF candidates in 1985 he said, “We all have to swallow humble pie - and I have been doing it for years … 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”. A great man for a peace process, social partnership or some late-night collective bargaining, certainly.

He preferred to have people in the tent. That’s why he could put together a coalition of opposing ideologues (Green and PD) and supplement them with a bunch of parochial anti-ideologues in a coalition so solid it will survive his passing with barely a backward glance.

He told the Irish Times [13 Nov 04], “‘I genuinely believe in being an inclusive person,’ he says. ‘I don’t have to work at it because it comes naturally to me. It’s about being tolerant, and seeing things the way the other person sees them. For this year I have studied [ Ian] Paisley. I have studied Paisley’s tactics. I would, in negotiations, study the other person and try to understand their views.’ He says he knows people often demand of him that he express his own view on an issue or “take a stand” when he is reluctant to. ‘But it’s not a question of what is my view. Ultimately, only things that have a consensus . . . are likely to succeed. Why does the European model work? Because two world wars have forced people to come together and not have wars any more, and now they try to find consensus.’”

His most recent biographer, John Downing, concludes that “his conciliatory strengths are also his weaknesses”.

Even if he had few principles he did have views of sorts - and ways of implementing them. Last year he told Katie Hannon in Village [4 April], “You have to try to plant a view and work a view. And I do that all the time. I do that out of absolute strategy and tactic”.

Still he was too quick to conclude that he couldn’t do anything – like about US flights through Shannon. “I looked at the great President Bush and I said to him I want to be sure to be sure and he assured me. Couldn’t do any more than that”. So there you are.

It was always interesting how whenever he met Bush the Taoiseach’s bearing got all Texan. Bush never went all Drumcondran. [See first photo, above]

Bertie’s former Deputy, Mary O’Rourke says his only real friend is himself. He spreads himself thinly. Surprisingly she feels, “he’s friendly but he’s not warm. I got to know him - and still I didn’t get to know him. Sometimes I had the feeling that I met nobody”. Charlie McCreevy said he knew 25 percent of the man and that was twenty four percent more than most. Funny then that you and I both think that somehow we know him.

For a long time the only time he had ever been unkind in public was when he told Gay Mitchell he was a “waffler, a waffler and you’ve always been a waffler”. These were his golden political years. Of late, however, he seems to have coarsened a lot, starting towards the end of the last Dail. He told (then rival-) socialist TD, Joe Higgins. “You have a failed ideology, you have the most hopeless policy [on housing] that I ever heard pursued by any nitwit,” Mr Ahern said. “You are a failed person, you were rejected and your political philosophy has been rejected and you’re not going to pull people back into the failed old policies that you dreamt up in south Kerry when you were a young fella. Now go away” [21/06/06]. He also replied to the Sunday Independent, when asked who leaked the story about his whiparound to the Irish Times, “I’d love to know. And I’d bury them. But I don’t know. But somebody was”. Bertie also revealed hidden fangs to poor Scott Millar of the Sunday Times who dared to ask him about the dollar values of money received relating to his house, cautioning him threateningly how far he would have got twenty years ago with such questions. But, revealingly, the antagonism only intensified after the general election. He infamously slagged off the media the day of his election victory and it has been war, usually by proxy, ever since. Recently, when FG TD Leo Varadkar compared the tainting of his legacy to the tainting of that of other international statesmen Bertie was, for some reason, particularly furious and we got a look at something edgy: “I’m big enough to take it, but when you hear a new deputy who isn’t a wet day in the place not alone castigating me, but castigating Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, I wish him well. I’d say he’d get an early exit”. Nor was it parliamentary, or wise, to ask the sensible Labour leader, Eamon Gilmore, if he was “deaf as well as stupid”. And I can’t see Tribunal Des letting it run that Bertie has today said his [DES's not BERTIE's] approach to Ms Carruth was “low-life”!

I met him a couple of times and he was outstandingly pleasant. He would jovially cut a comment like “Still battlin’ away” at me. Implying that he’d love to be battlin’ with me. But I was battlin’ AGAINST him. A lot of people were. He didn’t realise that with power came responsibility. In his case he’s been around long enough that he’s responsible for the whole lot. He is Ireland incarnate and Ireland is Bertie writ large. If you like Ireland today you’ll like Bertie. If not, you cannot.

He believes he owns the Botanical Gardens and announced on the Late Late Show that he liked nothing better than doin’ his hangin’ baskets. He attends weekly mass in the Pro-Cathedral on Saturday evenings. One of his favourite phrases is, “All I am saying is …” Humble Dub next door, then.

He’s the cleverest man in Irish politics (though hopelessly inarticulate and none too literary). That’s why he’s Ireland’s longest-serving Taoiseach after De Valera (who - remember- was one of only three people who understood the theory of relativity).

So to summarise: he doesn’t believe in anything except listening and being nice so he’s great at establishing the consensus. The problem is that he gets the consensus among those influential enough to make themselves known to the Taoiseach, which means the most vociferous vested interests in the land. And I mean the land. He represents the sort of people who’ve made a killing in the boom – in property, in selling sites, and above all in building. For Fianna Fail (and Fine Gael) and Bertie these are the people who cannot be ignored. More’s the pity that they are drunk on easy materialism. Under him the boom times got “more boomer” [IT 14 July 2006] and most of his circle seem to be loaded or connected to the building industry. It is clear that he was unusually impressed by a room full of businessmen in Manchester because they were all worth tens of millions. Though he’d never agree, clearly Bertie’s head was half full of money and the moneyed. No room in Bertie’s head for the homeless, the unemployed, the mentally ill, students, immigrants, prisoners, those without a voice.

No room for anything long-term, for planning, for the environment, for big ideas, for morality, for Vision. Which brings us to …

THAT PHILOSOPHY

He’s a socialist: “I am one of the few socialists left in Irish politics” and “I have a very socialist view on life. I have it in my mind that I own the Phoenix Park, and I own the Botanic Gardens, I own Dublin Zoo. Because the State participates in these things, I am free to go in there whenever the opening hours are [IT Nov 13 04] .

He doesn’t consider himself either a conservative or a liberal [IT Feb 1 92].

He has said, “I’m not big into ideology because I think that people that are into the ideology spend their time talking about it rather than doing it” [Examiner 5 Apr 04].

His philosophy as revealed to Hector O hEochagain is “ye have to roll outta bed in the morning and say listen here, here goes”. Really we need know nothing more.

As far back as 1983 Gene Kerrigan noted in Magill (Mar 30) that Bertie felt that ‘Running for things is okay - standing for them is usually neither profitable nor popular”. The only thing that really exercised him at the time was internment and he considered himself a bit “rebel-minded” until 1975.

By 1994 he’d expanded his range and could plausibly claim, “I’ve probably more deep views than most people” [Sunday Tribune 10 July]. Other people “throw white elephants and red herrings at each other”. He never would.

He thinks of himself as an environmentalist but has created a carbon-squandering monster, planning anarchy and a visual slum. In 2003 he told the Dail that opposition to motorways was about “swans, snails and people hanging out of trees”. Most likely he listens to the business lobby and has never really bothered to think about it for himself.

He’s read Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone not once but twice. It recommends sustaining a sense of Community. Perhaps he should read it again.

Since there’s no end to his political range there’s absolutely no need for consistency or seriousness. For example, there is absolutely no reason not to be a socialist, environmentalist or communitarian. As well as republican, of course.

He diced with indulgence of vigilantism. In 1983 he controversially noted in an interview with John Bowman on RTE that, folowing some kneecappings in his constituency, “very severe action was taken against known criminals and the area has almost cleaned itself up since”.

In a 1986 interview in Hot Press he advocated giving power to Gardai to “box the ears” of offenders. And he wasn’t very gay-friendly. He hadn’t yet met any homosexuals and wondered a little old-fashionedly, “Does anyone go near them?”

ABOUT THE MAN

He was christened Bartholomew Patrick Ahern.

PJ Mara and Eamon Dunphy went to his alma mater, St Patrick’s National School, Drumcondra.

As a young accountant he says, “after paying for books, extra tutorials and so on there was next to nothing left. I lived on nixers, doing the books of pubs and shops. I was part of the black economy”.

With (now Senator) Tony Kett he set up All Hamptons soccer club in 1974 and met Miriam there.

In the 1986 interview with Hot Press he implied he drank and drove. “If there is Bass around I’m immune to the bloody stuff regardless of the breathalyser. I enjoy a few jars”. The IRA ‘n’ beer is an interesting anagram of Bertie Ahern during this rebel period..

As Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1986-7 his priorities were housing policy and improving the look of the city, though nobody really felt 1987 a high point for Dublin’s aesthetic and he was inclined to be over-reliant on cranes on the skyline as an indicator of quality. He broke convention and used to go to six or seven functions every evening, sometimes addressing dinners over the canapes, before hastily moving on.

He was regarded as a bit slovenly at the time - his anorak years. During an interview with the Sunday Tribune’s Kevin Dawson in 1991 he dropped butter on his shirt and removed it from his tummy with a knife. The Evening Herald poked a camera into the Mayoral limousine to find scattered Taytos and strewn Caramilk wrappers.  He was notoriously late for Cabinet meetings at this time.

By 1989 he was employing a grooming consultant. Celia also groomed him. In 1997 he was voted best groomed man in Leinster House by women TDs and Senators. The anorak was sold for £2500 to raise funds for his old school. But that wouldn’t pay for more than a few months make-up these days.

He was government Chief Whip at 30 and was closely involved in the withdrawal of the whip from Dessie O’Malley who, crazy liberal that he was, wanted condoms legalised and so was found guilty of “conduct unbecoming” by Fianna Fail and expelled from the parliamentary party.

In 1987 Bertie still felt there was more to his ambition than politics and soccer, “I would still like to go into business and who knows, maybe I will”. Tax-consultancy to doctors was the unlikely choice of alternative career for someone who so loves his public.

Somewhat ungallantly he had a tendency around the time he was breaking the news of his marital breakup to refer to Celia as just another friend. For example: “I’d probably be with … with somebody more than others, yeah, but it’s very much a group [of friends] .. we hang around as a group … but when I’m going to a function, like anybody else you don’t want to be on your own when everybody else is with somebody”. Michael Smith TD a supporter of candidate Albert Reynolds, pre-empted Bertie’s bid to be Taoiseach, cynically stated that “people do like to know where the Taoiseach of the day is living”. This sort of nastimess allegedly prompted Bertie’s problematic attempts to bag himself a nest.

500-700 representational letters are sent out weekly from St Luke’s, his constituency office, probably the most in the country. If you’re in the constituency you’re likely to receive an annual christmas card with a big Bertie signature that you can’t believe is real - and isn’t.

During the 1999 Christmas break, a frustrated constituent who left a message on an answering machine in St Luke’s, was surprised to receive a return call from the Taoiseach about a lost Ryanair bag.

In 1984 he said that since 1968 he’d been “up every lamp-post in the constituency” canvassing. This was nothing compared to Dermot Ahern who in pursuit of information about Ray Burke, according to Bertie went “up every lamp-post in North Dublin”.

When Ray Burke was forced out of office for allegedly taking corrupt payments, Ahern blamed “John Bruton and his likes”. He said he hoped “he was proud of his handiwork and that he never comes to an untimely end”. There’s that untimely end/early exit theme again.

In his pocket he always carries a St Francis Xavier Novena of Grace Prayer and a Man U fixture list.

The total value of lodgements and other transactions queried by the Mahon tribunal in its public inquiries - so far - into Mr Ahern’s finances, exceeds £452,800 - between 1988 and 1997. The total is the equivalent of €886,830 in today’s terms.

Eh rat in beer is another anagram of Bertie Ahern.

Farewell.