Bertie

The opening episode of Bertie takes us from childhood through to the election of 1989. Insider accounts show how a formidable constituency operation was created around him in Drumcondra, a ‘machine’ that provided him with the electoral and financial muscle to reach the top. Bertie Ahern was born in September 1951, the youngest of five children. As a youth, Ahern helped his father on the city farm at All Hallows College, and followed every local sport. Friends from Drumcondra would form the basis of Bertie Ahern’s brash and energetic canvassing team when he was added to the Fianna Fail ticket for the 1977 general election. Not expected to win, Ahern found himself swept along in Jack Lynch’s landslide. Election to the Dail was a real achievement for a first time candidate with no money, and no family contacts.

Episode two opens with the 1990 Presidential election and takes the story up to Bertie Ahern’s appointment as leader of Fianna Fáil in 1994 Charles Haughey’s sudden resignation in January 1992 saw Bertie Ahern come under intense pressure to stand against Albert Reynolds for the leadership. However, after what according to his supporters was a smear campaign, Ahern ultimately decided not to stand, and survived his ‘Night of the Long Knives’ reshuffle unscathed. As newly appointed Treasurer of Fianna Fail, Ahern appointed Des Richardson, a member of the ‘Drumcondra mafia’ as Fianna Fail’s national fundraiser. In the 80s, Ahern’s machine had moved to take control of the party organisation in North Dublin. Now they were installed at the very top of the party.

In episode three Bertie Ahern is challenged on some of the theories relating to a 'good will loan' in 1994. And he talks about a gruelling week of negotiations culminating in the Good Friday Agreement. In December 1994 Bertie Ahern had confidently been expected to become Taoiseach. He was a heartbeat away from a vote to confirm him in the Dáil. But in the middle of the night, Ahern took a call from Labour leader Dick Spring informing him that a coalition deal was off. Though few outside Bertie Ahern’s inner circle knew it, the days before Spring’s call had also been momentous ones. At the weekend, a man called Michael Wall had apparently arrived in St Luke’s with a briefcase full of cash. Ahern had passed the cash onto Celia Larkin, who lodged it to an AIB account.

The final episode of this revealing series takes the story from early 1999 up to 2008. Set up in 1998 to ‘enquire urgently’ into planning matters in Dublin, nearly a decade later the Planning Tribunal was focusing on Bertie Ahern’s bank accounts – or lack of them – in the early 90s. A pattern of lodgements and withdrawals well in excess of his salary between 1993 and 1995 was hard to explain – although sensationally he tried to do just that on the Six One news in September 2006. From then on, the Taoiseach was never quite able to rise above stories of digouts and safes full of cash. ‘Bertie’ concludes with an initial assessment of his legacy. How much credit can he take for the boom – or blame for the bust? Was he a modernising force in Irish politics, or the last man standing from Haughey’s old guard? How will a man who devoted his life to politics – and sacrificed much along the way – cope now that he is out of office and facing unknown conclusions from the Mahon Tribunal Report?