Bertie by Colm Keena

Author:Colm Keena
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: -
Publisher: Gill & Macmillan
Published: 2011-12-15T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

TAOISEACH, 2002–8

Charlie McCreevy nominated Bertie Ahern for the position of Taoiseach after the 2002 general election. McCreevy rose to address the Dáil just before noon on 6 June as Ahern’s partner, Celia Larkin, looked on from the public gallery.

The Government leaving office today held it longer than any other in peacetime. At the end of five years it also became the first Government in thirty-three years to receive the people’s mandate to continue in office and did so on the basis of increased representation in the House. Central to these unprecedented achievements has been the steady and clear leadership of Deputy Bertie Ahern. Although he has held high office for a significant period, he continues to be in touch with the people, and they continue to have faith in him. Over the past five years they saw a leader who helped deliver a historic breakthrough for peace, helped the largest sustained period of economic growth in our history and ensured economic growth meant real social progress throughout the country. He went before the people with a clear message of wanting to build on this peace, prosperity and progress, and they gave him a mandate.

Ahern was elected by 93 votes to 68. He got the support of his own party, the PDs and some independents. Accepting the result, Ahern spoke again of the honour involved. Politics was a noble calling, he said, and the justifiable pride those who had been returned to the Dáil could feel had to be matched by a sense of duty and by ‘the determination to earn our place by hard work and with integrity.’ He praised Michael Noonan, who had been replaced as leader of Fine Gael by Enda Kenny, and also spoke generously about Mary Harney, Ruairí Quinn, Trevor Sargent of the Green Party and the former party leaders Proinsias de Rossa, John Bruton and Dick Spring. ‘I pledge to work ceaselessly . . . and never to give less than my very best.’

Ruairí Quinn congratulated Ahern on his political achievement and his return to office—a testimony to his extraordinary popularity and his dedication to politics and public life. He also spoke of the Lazarus party of Irish politics—the PDs—and noted that his constituency colleague, Michael McDowell, had on his third attempt managed to get into the Dáil at the same time as his party was going into government.

For my part, the Labour Party will provide a critique of the politics of choice, this centre-right Government which has pursued a deliberate political ideological agenda masked in the cosy populism of a very popular man, who sincerely believes what he says but allowed his Minister for Finance to contradict him at every twist and turn in terms of the policy that was implemented.

At four in the afternoon Ahern was back in the Dáil chamber to announce his new Government. Harney was Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment. The other members were Michael Smith (Defence), Joe Walsh (Agriculture and Food), Charlie McCreevy (Finance), Brian

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