Bertie Boy bows out

While Bertie Ahern may have claimed the announcement of his resignation as Taoiseach was made voluntarily and at a time of his own choosing, there is no doubt that the continuing revelations at the Mahon Tribunal hastened his departure. Up until last week he was showing every indication that he was set to brazen it out, even going on the offensive with his own legal challenges.

What really did for him was the admission from his former secretary that he had given her pounds sterling to exchange and deposit in his bank accounts. This was a charge that he had vehemently denied. But he had now been caught telling a blatant lie. With another appearance at the tribunal looming in May, where he would be questioned about this, he chose to resign.

Of course this was dressed up as being in the interests of the country rather than a desperate attempt to salvage some dignity from a precarious position. Not that Ahern could muster much dignity in his resignation announcement. It was a long whine about how he had been hard done by, the innocent victim of a relentless media campaign. This was a complete distortion. It was not the media that brought him down (in fact he had gotten a relatively easy ride for a long time), but all his lies and dodgy dealings. He was a corrupt politician whose luck had finally run out.

Not that you would have gained this impression from the tributes paid to him. To go by them you would have thought Bertie Ahern was a saint. The biggest claims made for him were as the architect of the peace process and social partnership. Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams said he “brought about the Good Friday Agreement and he deserves our thanks for that." SIPTU General President Jack O'Connor said Ahern's time in office had seen “the most dramatic enhancement of economic prosperity in our entire history”. But it really says more about the state of trade unions and the republicanism movement than Ahern that their representatives should praise the two greatest triumphs of imperialism and capitalism in Ireland.

The claims for Ahern as the architect of these is also dubious. While he may have been around, the figure most associated with social partnership was Charles Haughey. The peace process also predated his period as Fianna Fail leader and Taoiseach. The real drive for this came form the political collapse of the republican movement. The role of Irish Government was to copper fasten this by going along with the British and dropping any gestures (such as articles 2 & 3) towards democracy.

There is also an attempt to present Ahern as a symbol of the “new Ireland”. But this is a myth as well, ignoring the political milieu that created him. He attempted to spin this myth himself in his resignation speech when referring to his admiration for former Fianna Fail leaders. However, his list had one glaring omission - Charles Haughey. This is even more glaring in the case of Bertie Ahern as Haughey was his political mentor. He was part of Haughey’s inner circle and the monumental corruption of that period. It was Ahern who singed the black cheques that aided Haughey’s pilfering of the public purse.

Despite his man of the people image Ahern, like Huaghey and his other predecessors, was only concerned with looking after the interests of the rich in Ireland – from tax amnesties to low taxes on profits and privatisation. He presided over a period when inequality grew massively and billions were transferred from Ireland’s workers to the wealthy. He had done his bit to create a rich man’s paradise and expected to get his due. This is the real story behind Ahern’s “unusual” financial arrangements.

Bertie Ahern claimed that one of the reasons for delaying his resignation to the 6 May was so he could take up his invitation to address a joint sitting of the US Congress. That such an “honour” should be performed by someone leaving office because of corruption may appear unseemly. But what better representative of the Irish political class could there be?

Paisley’s little list

Given the thoroughly corrupt character of the political settlement in the north the exposure of the sordid dealings that accompanied its inception at the St Andrews talks should not come as a surprise. Some of these have now been revealed in a ministerial letter released under the Freedom of Information Act.

This letter was a response by one of direct rule ministers at the time to a “shopping list” of demands from the DUP’s Ian Paisley Jnr. The demands raised by Paisley were pure pork barrel politics - all related to commercial activities with his own north Antrim constituency. They included planning approval for a "resort spa" including "200 homes"; a request for "private sector land to be included in development" of the new visitors centre at the Giant's Causeway; and a suggestion that a judicial review of lands in Ballee be dropped. The letter concluded with an assurance that Tony Blair’s government would "try to respond positively" to the requests, that the letter itself should be regarded as a “statement of intent". The clear inference of such correspondence is that the restoration of devolution would be eased by a favourable response.

Ian Paisley Jnr claimed that that these dealings were on the “margins” of the talks and that he was merely taking the opportunity to raise issues pertinent to his constituents. However, when his “shopping list” is examined it is clear that its items relate to one constituent in particular. Two of the projects listed are linked to the millionaire developer and DUP member Seymour Sweeney.

The judicial review of the sale of land in Ballee related to a dispute between the Department of Social Development over how much landowners would have to pay for the return of land that had been vested in the 1970s. The legal action taken by landowners, which was subsequently the subject of a review, was backed by Sweeney. At the time Paisley was lobbying for the review to be halted Sweeney and his associates were offering just £9m for the land. The court battle was eventually settled in June 2007 when a £50m price was agreed. For a party that supposedly supports law and order (with Paisley Jnr as its justice spokesperson) the DUP was very relaxed about such an overtly political intervention in the judicial process.

The case of the Causeway visitors centre is better known, with the attempts by the DUP to scupper the long standing commitment to a publicly owned centre in favour of a private development owned by Sweeney. The subsequent decisions by DUP ministers on the Causeway are consistent with the demands made by the Paisleys’ in their lobbying of British ministers. What these cases have in common is that despite the rhetoric about benefitting the constituency, all the benefit accrues to Sweeney. In both cases the public loses out.

Despite the allegations of sleaze and corruption building up around the DUP, Paisley’s Jnr in particular, there is very little criticism from other parties. Obscure backbnmcnhers are allowed to make minor criticisms. But without backing from the party leadership their opposition is merely tokenistic. When asked to comment on the Paisley shopping list, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams made some pious statement about his party not being interested in side deals but the common good. This is nonsense. Sinn Fein have made numerous side deals with the British. Most of these have either collapsed, such as the On the Run legislation, or been reneged upon, as in a case of the devolution of policing and justice powers. The difference with the DUP’s side deals is that are actually delivered upon. Four of the six demands on Paisley’s wish list have been granted!

Given the lack of real opposition, scandals such this are unlikely to destabilise the settlement. However, they do serve a useful purpose as they erode the illusions that workers may have in the Assembly. Such a process is as essential element of building a new opposition movement.