Proof that in the end, not even Teflon lasts for ever
Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair's relationship was a key in Northern Ireland's peace process. Bertie will hope he is remembered more for his tireless work in the North than for the scandals that darkened his final days in office
For a decade he dominated Dublin politics as deal-maker supreme, negotiator par excellence, master of his once fractious party, skilful manager of the Celtic Tiger and peacemaker in Northern Ireland.
There was much achievement and indeed glory in the career of Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. But yesterday it came to an abrupt end amid a welter of allegations of tawdry, venal behaviour.
His announcement that he will resign within weeks came after many months of revelations and accusations.
An official tribunal looking into his affairs found no actual smoking gun, but in the end the cumulative effect of so many mysteries brought him down. The fact that he will resign just after having the honour of addressing the US Congress demonstrates the dimensions of his fall.
His answers to the many questions on money were unconvincing and increasingly far-fetched, so that his credibility took a remarkable slump.
The irony is that he was once regarded as the Mister Clean of his Fianna Fail party which, under its previous leader Charles Haughey, had a reputation as being deeply corrupt and regarded as "the party of the brown envelope".
For years he was known as the Teflon Taoiseach since none of the numerous allegations about Fianna Fail ever seemed to cause him personal damage.
But that changed. It took years of digging by the tribunal's lawyers and investigators to unearth a web of mysterious bank accounts and puzzling payments.
Nothing that has turned up comes close to rivalling the exploits of Haughey, who during a legendarily corrupt career accepted many millions of pounds. Mr Ahern's modest lifestyle provided a huge contrast with Haughey's lavish behaviour.
Bertie had absolutely no taste for ostentation. He made much of his man-of-the-people image as a Man United supporter, a divorcee who liked women, and who spent Friday nights drinking pints of Bass with his mates in north-Dublin pubs.
He said once: "I have no big houses or mansions or yachts or studs. All I've got is a mortgage." He carried this off in large part because, unlike Haughey, he seemed not to care about personal enrichment.
He was, he projected, one of the boys, a political workaholic fascinated with power but uninterested in amassing worldly wealth. That persona endured for many years, but it eventually vanished under the weight of the tribunal.
A Fianna Fail underworld came to light. Mr Ahern's former girlfriend, for example, testified he drove her to a bank in Dublin's O'Connell Street so she could nip in and withdraw stg£50,000 in cash.
A businessman involved in a complicated house deal with Mr Ahern told of taking Ir£28,000 in a briefcase and heaping it on his desk. Mr Ahern put the cash into a safe, without counting it and without offering a receipt.
This was strange behaviour for a government minister: perhaps stranger still was the fact that a man who was both an accountant and Minister for Finance had no bank account.
One of the final straws came in recent weeks when his former secretary broke down in the tribunal witness box.
Amid her tears she said plaintively: "I just want to go home." The widespread sense that he had something to hide and had sent in a former employee to carry the can led to a surge of public feeling against him.
He will, like Tony Blair, hope that history will pay more attention to his performance on Northern Ireland than on other parts of his record. He and Blair came to office at the same point in 1997, immediately forming a relationship refreshingly free from the strains which had previously affected Anglo-Irish relations.
This proved one of the keys to the peace process. Mr Ahern also struck up working relationships with Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams and Unionist leader David Trimble.
Crucially, Blair and Ahern agreed that an exit route to the Troubles could be envisaged.
The Good Friday agreement of 1998 was an important milestone. The funeral of Ahern's mother coincided with a crucial moment in the talks, so that he left Dublin before dawn to meet Blair in Belfast, then returned to Dublin for the funeral at noon before travelling back to Belfast again.
Former US Senator George Mitchell, who chaired the talks, said admiringly of him: "I don't recall ever having seen a person as totally exhausted. I also had never seen a person more determined."
Bertie went on to strike up a relationship with the Rev Ian Paisley, helping pave the way for the historic Paisley-Sinn Fein administration in Belfast.
Bertie was certainly one of the most popular politicians to emerge in Ireland in the last half-century. He is credited with managing the economy well, winning three elections by stressing the feelgood factor.
If he lacked a certain vision, he was given much credit for shrewd management and steady government, and for devoting much time to the peace process. He has seen off a series of opposition leaders who could find no way of bringing down the Teflon Taoiseach.
He had said that he would not fight another general election, but he also said lately that he intended to stay in office for some years yet. He is thus departing earlier than he wanted to, and for reasons which he will always regret.
Haughey famously said of him: "He's the man. He's the best, the most skilful, the most devious and the most cunning of them all." Yet it all came to an ignominious end. Eventually the man regarded as Ireland's most astute politician just ran out of road.
For all the cash in safes and briefcases he eventually became politically overdrawn and had to go. His skills and his cunning took him a long way, but the moral seems that be that, in the end, not even Teflon lasts for ever.
