What Really Happened On Bertie’s Watch?
Much of the coverage surrounding Bertie Ahern’s resignation announcement has understandably focused on the controversies at the Mahon Tribunal and the outgoing Fianna Fáil leader’s role in them.
Faced with the damage the growing accusations of financial impropriety were doing to his party and his government, Ahern had to bow to the inevitable on Wednesday (April 2) and announce a date for his resignation.
Whether or not the man who has led the Twenty-Six County state for over a decade was guilty of corruption for personal gain is something that may or may not be established by the limited remit of the Mahon Tribunal.
However, the impact Bertie Ahern’s administration has had on the state, and the country as a whole, is something that can, and should, be analysed and critically debated immediately.
Strangely, the opposition parties in the Twenty-Six Counties seemed highly reticent about commencing any such critical debate or analysis in the aftermath of Ahern’s announcement.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny stated that much of Ahern’s “good work” would be overshadowed by events linked to the Tribunal.
Labour’s Eamon Gilmore praised the “remarkable achievements” of Leinster House’s outgoing supremo.
In the Six Counties, SDLP leader Mark Durkan said Ahern had ensured “opportunity for all the people of Ireland was maximised”.
Glowing praise indeed for the first Fianna Fáil leader since Éamon De Valera to serve three terms as head of a Dublin government.
But it is glowing praise that might be largely derived from the fact that all the quoted politicians generally share the same ideological space as Ahern.
If they didn’t, they might have mentioned some of the facts that make the current administration’s record look less than rosy.
720,000 people in the Twenty-Six Counties are currently living in households whose income is below that of the recognised poverty line. Children, as always, fare the worst in these situations, with 20 per cent of those living in the southern state at risk of poverty.
If only in an attempt to gain a few extra votes, the opposition leaders might have mentioned these facts, or asked why they are allowed to pertain in an economy that has grown fat on the international conditions that created the much vaunted Celtic Tiger.
They might have publicly concurred with the Commission of Religious in Ireland’s recent (CORI) statement that:
“The failure by the government to address the ‘working poor issue’ is a serious indictment of how the resources available throughout the Celtic Tiger years were used.”
Or the comments from SIPTU president Jack O’Connor:
“His (Bertie Ahern’s) decision to resign places an obligation on all our political leaders to focus on the key issues confronting us, such as the growing inequality in our society, the creeping privatisation and diminution of our public health service, the urgent need to tackle our training and skills deficit, and to eradicate the exploitation of vulnerable workers by unscrupulous employers in some sectors of our economy.”
They didn’t and, as a result, all of the other major injustices facilitated or implemented by the Fianna Fáil-led government were also swept under the carpet.
And not one of these heroic politicians mentioned the role played by Ahern in the scandalous pilfering of Ireland’s oil and gas by private energy companies, while hundreds of our elderly citizens die every winter because they can’t afford to heat their homes.
US troops, meanwhile, continue to traipse through Shannon Airport on their way to their continuing war on the Iraqi people. Under Bertie Ahern’s administration, over one million US military personnel – nearly 9,000 flight loads – have got to Iraq via Ireland.
According to the anti-war campaigner and academic Dr David Morrison, the Twenty-Six County state has “provided far more assistance to the (British-US) war effort than most of the 30 or so members of the ‘coalition of the willing’ with troops in Iraq”.
In 2004, Bertie Ahern was head of the EU group that negotiated the EU Constitution, which will soon be put to the electorate of the Twenty-Six Counties. The implementation of what is now called the Lisbon Treaty would destroy the last vestiges of sovereignty in the southern state.
Despite Ireland’s history of traumatic mass emigration, the Fianna Fáil government has dealt callously with many of the immigrants who have landed on our shores. Families like the Agbonlahors from Nigeria have been deported with no good reason and without any consideration for our humanitarian responsibilities.
All this points to a government and a leader who refused to harness the new-found wealth of this nation in the interests of those who created the wealth – the working people. Schools were left dilapidated, hospitals were privatised and shut and housing waiting lists were allowed to spiral out of control. Mortgages rates have soared and the cost of living outweighs the average wage in what is now one of the world’s most expensive states to live in.
In the economic downturn that is upon us, the only sustainable result of the Celtic Tiger will be the bloated bank accounts of the rich.
On the constitutional front, the fact that Ahern’s career has been analysed in two segments – his role in the Six Counties and his role in the Twenty-Six Counties – points to the utter failure of the leader of the self-styled republican party to bring the unity of the nation in any way closer.
British prime minister Gordon Brown said his government couldn’t have had a better partner with which to conduct their affairs in Ireland. Given the nature of Britain’s involvement in Ireland, this ‘compliment’ should be looked at with embarrassment by Ahern.
This is only part of the political, social and economic legacy of Bertie Ahern and his government.
Mr Ahern might not have been able to change all the ills in Irish society, even with the vast resources that were at his disposal – it is the fact that he didn’t try that makes his legacy so criminal.