A career shortened by trials and tribulations
Tuesday May 06 2008
IT is 18 months since Bertiegate, the crisis that was eventually to topple Ireland's most successful politician since Eamon de Valera, broke in the newspapers.
But such was the Taoiseach's dexterity, revelations that might have proved fatal for other public figures, were successfully warded off for a year and a half. And in between Mr Ahern managed to secure a history-making third term in government.
It was September 21, 2006, when a story emerged that the Mahon Tribunal was investigating payments to the Taoiseach.
The cash was said to have come from businessman David McKenna in 1993 when Mr Ahern was Minister for Finance. But this was inaccurate -- Mr McKenna accepted responsibility for only a slice of the donations Mr Ahern later said he had received.
Bertie, on a constituency visit to Clare, admitted the general thrust of the story, and said that whoever leaked it must have seen "the full file". But he also claimed the amounts quoted -- €50,000 to €100,000 -- were "off the wall".
Fine Gael then seized upon a quote from the Taoiseach in the Dail from 1997. Speaking about the McCracken Tribunal, Mr Ahern had said: "The tribunal stresses a point I have repeatedly emphasised, that public representatives must not be under a personal financial obligation to anyone."
Then on September 26, Bertie gave a special interview to RTE television news in his St Luke's constituency office in which he admitted accepting £39,000 (€50,000) from a dozen apostles in two tranches, in 1993 and 1994.
Over a 25-minute interview Mr Ahern was absolutely candid about his marriage break-up. He said the money he received was to help him over that "very dark, very sad" period. Some of it went towards a £20,000 educational trust for his daughters -- and at this point he closed his eyes and bowed his head, a father emotional at the recall of difficult times past. He had managed to save £50,000 up to the point of his legal separation, he told Bryan Dobson.
But after agreeing the final details of that separation in November 1993, he was left without a house, while "the £50,000 was gone" and he still had legal bills.
He took out a loan from the Allied Irish Bank in O'Connell Street to meet the legal costs. The next month his friends organised a whip-round, even though he had previously refused a fundraiser to assist him with his personal finances. He was presented with £22,500 -- seven people paying £2,500 each, and an eighth man paying £5,000.
"They gave me the £22,500, and I said that I would take this as a debt of honour, that I would repay it in full," said Bertie. He said that he assured his benefactors that he would pay interest on it. "I know the tax law, I'm an accountant."
But he added: "I haven't repaid the money because they refused to take it." It had been 13 years, and an unrepayable loan is a gift, as the Opposition later point out.
The first bunch of those allegedly giving bale-outs included Fianna Fail fundraiser Des Richardson, stockbroker Padraic O'Connor, former Chairman of CERT (the hotel training agency) Jim Nugent, David McKenna, Fintan Gunne, personal friends Paddy Reilly and Mick Collins, and the publican Charlie Chawke.
"Later on in 1994 another four friends gave me £16,500," said Bertie. He named Joe Burke, Dermot Carew, Barry English and Paddy Reilly, "known to my friends as Paddy the Plasterer".
It was magnetic television. On the crucial question of whether the favours were ever called in, Bertie offered this: "All I can say on that is they didn't, and never did they ask me. They were not people that ever tried to get me to do something. I might have appointed somebody [to a State board] but I appointed them because they were friends, not because of anything they had given me."
Bertie insisted that there was a difference between "somebody taking millions, somebody taking hundreds of thousands in exchange for contracts and other matters, and taking what is a relatively small contribution from friends who had a clear understanding they would be paid back."
"The only other thing, Bryan, totally separate and nothing to do with this -- but I don't want anyone saying I didn't give full picture. I did a function in Manchester with a business organisation, nothing to do with politics or whatever.
"I was talking about the Irish economy; I was explaining about Irish economy matters and I'd say there was about 25 people at that. I spent about four hours with them - dinner; I did question and answers - and all the time from 1977 up to current period I got eight thousand on that, which you know, whether it was a political donation ... "
This was Bertie admitting to receiving £8,000 in cash. In 1994, the year after his marital separation. He was Minister for Finance at the time -- and the Green Book that provides guidelines to ministerial conduct at the time warns expressly against accepting anything of value in the course of one's office. He maintained: "I've broken no law. I've broken no ethical code. I've broken no tax law. I've always paid my income tax. I paid capital gains tax, but I've never had much in my life to pay, and I paid my gift tax ...
"I did point out to my friends a number of times that it was better that I clear these, and you know, they would sometimes laugh it off ... " But within days the Revenue Commissioners were writing to him to dispute some of his assertions.
For one thing, leaving aside liabilities yet to be decided and on which the Taoiseach has made a prepayment of €70,000, the Revenue disputed Mr Ahern's Dail assertion that he had consulted with the tax authorities, as they had no record of it.
The Taoiseach later claimed that when he said "the tax authorities" he meant private authorities on tax, such as his own financial adviser, Des Peelo.
Later, Labour leader Pat Rabbitte asked pointedly in the Dail: "Are you telling the House that during the period your were Minister for Finance, responsible for running the Exchequer, that you had no bank account in the jurisdiction? Did you have a bank account outside the jurisdiction?" Meanwhile it emerged that one of the amounts given to Bertie in 1993, from Padraic O'Connor, was a cheque drawn on the corporate account of NCB stockbrokers, which put a hole in the "personal loans" story. As the Government limped along into May, the Taoiseach called an election just when the Mahon tribunal was about to examine Bertiegate.
THE PDs wobbled. Michael McDowell expressed particular concern about a tribunal suggestion that Mr Ahern may have received $45,000 in US dollars. But after a disastrous opening to the campaign -- in which the FF manifesto launch was overshadowed by new revelations -- the Taoiseach was returned to power. The PDs were all but wiped out. In September last year, the Taoiseach gave public evidence about his finances, with explanations that stretched credulity and raised new questions.
As 2008 opened, Bertie was 2/1 with Ladbrokes to be replaced as Taoiseach in 2008. The end finally came when Grainne Carruth, his constituency secretary, contradicted the Taoiseach's evidence that lodgments to his building society account were the proceeds of salary cheques. She accepted that they were the proceeds of sterling conversions. Mr Ahern finally ran out of political road after an epic 11 years at the top.
- Senan Molony
