FORMER TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern has criticised his successor Brian Cowen for his lack of engagement with the public during the economic crisis.
Mr Ahern also expressed reservations on the Government’s handling of the events leading up to the European Union and International Monetary Fund bailout, suggesting that Ministers could have acted sooner to prevent the intervention.
In an interview with yesterday’s Irish News of the World – a newspaper for which he is a paid sports columnist – Mr Ahern said Mr Cowen had departed from his (Ahern’s) practice of giving daily interviews.
“We live in a 24/7 Ireland and while I don’t think the Taoiseach has to be out every hour, he should be out regularly. The Taoiseach should be communicating the information that he has. These aren’t secrets, I don’t consider them State secrets,” he said.
“For whatever reason, the pattern that I had established stopped and [the incoming Government] decided only to do rare ones.”
Mr Ahern said the Government also decided not to do daily doorstep interviews (short interviews with a group of reporters on the way in, or out, of events).
“If you ask me, my view is you’re better doing it my way, but he [Mr Cowen] opted not to do that.”
The Taoiseach’s spokesman said yesterday he had no comment to make on Mr Ahern’s interview.
The former taoiseach announced last week he would be stepping down from the Dáil this year after 33 years as a TD.
On the EU-IMF bailout, Mr Ahern contended that he had been aware as early as last May, when Greece was forced to seek international assistance, that Ireland could be in trouble.
He questioned whether the Government had examined all options back then.
“Were there not things they could have done from May to November to try and avoid the bailout?” He said it was his view that the Government should have announced the €6 billion in cuts in May or June, and not October.
“If we had said to the markets . . . there were things we were going to do, it could have made a difference,” he said.
Mr Ahern also claimed that his experience would have helped Ireland through the crisis if he had stayed on after 2008.
“I think I would have been good if I was there throughout the crisis. I’m not saying I would have prevented the economic recession. I do think my long experience and the good contacts I had around the world would have been helpful. But it wasn’t to be.”
A senior Minister responded yesterday by saying that Mr Ahern was trying to rewrite history for himself.
The Minister, who spoke on the condition of not being identified, said that it was a bit rich from a leader who found it impossible to make any decision.
“As a person who was at the pinnacle for so long, it’s very difficult for him to accept that he was a major contributor to the present crisis,” he said.
In the interview, Mr Ahern did not fully rule himself out as a candidate for the presidency, “if the circumstances were right”.