Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny thinks that Bertie Ahern will be in trouble if he fails to provide clear answers to the Tribunal. Kenny is wrong.
For Ahern, this episode is nothing more than an irritant.
He knows that standards in Irish public life operate from the sewer, that most Irish citizens are docile and easily fooled, that the media quickly loses interest as soon as the next scandal breaks and most of all he knows that there is no authority in the state with the courage or power to actually make him accountable.
He may be mildly concerned that if the Greens decide to abandon ship, he will have the bother of rearranging his power base.
He has nothing else to worry about.
On the 15, December, 2000, Bertie Ahern read into the Dail Records that” the Flood Tribunal was established by the unanimous will of the Members of this House, and every citizen and even more so , every Member of the Oireachtas, owes a legal, moral and democratic duty to cooperate with the Tribunal, not to obstruct it and to comply with its legal orders…”
Clearly Bertie Ahern has done everything he can to frustrate the Tribunal and to undermine the confidence of the public in the tribunals.
In a normal society there would be an outcry in Parliament and the media. Here in this country Vincent Browne has been the only prominent journalist who has had the courage to look Bertie Ahernin the eye and to tell him that his explanations had no credibility.
The general reaction to this challenge in the media, and particularly by RTE, was to present this as a moral victory for Bertie Ahern.
This is the extent to which Mr Ahern and his associates have corroded our democratic instituions. The manner in which the Sunday Independent and its editor, Aengus Fanning, has pandered to and tried to curry favour with Mr Ahern is an embarassment to the media in this country
Bertie Ahern with his everchanging stories and claims of not being able to remember particular events relating to some of the lodgements in question has been too clever by half. He is steadily painting a picture of a man whose explanations cannot be relied upon. He clearly was not telling the truth last year when he claimed to have given a full account of his financial affairs. Justice Mary Flaherty pointed out to Mr Ahern that he had given “polar opposites” accounts of why he withdrew 50,000 euro from AIB O Connell St in January 1995. The standard of proof required in Civil Court cases is ” the balance of probability”. Using this standard of proof an ordinary reasonable person might conclude that Mr Ahern is not telling the truth in his testimony. Bearing this in mind, one could speculate that the sums of money, which were withdrawn from bank accounts, held in a safe and relodged again, were not in fact the same sums of money but were different monies, from different sources, and that Mr Ahern had received a good deal more money than he was admitting to. Why should this not be a reasonable suggestion ? Mr Ahern, supported by Ceclia Larkins testimony, has stated his preference for dealing in cash and he has not kept records which would substantiate his various accounts. Again, his everchanging stories have eroded his reliability as a witness. The handling of such large amounts of cash is highly unusual and irregular, particularly when done so by a Government Minister. Mr Ahern has instead of offering a reasonable explanation for his financial dealings has painted himself into a corner where he will find it even harder to refute the allegations of those who suggest he received monies from business people in the 89/ 92 period because he has eroded his own credibility.
Berie Ahern and his ministerial colleagues are leaving a very bitter legacy to the new generation of Fianna Fail politicans. If Brian Cowen and his colleagues continue to support Berie Ahern’s fabrications then the younger politicans have to support Mr Ahern also and so will be tainted by Aherns wrongdoings