Bertie manages grand entrance but final exit still hit him like a train

HEAD HIGH, shoulders back and arms swinging, a smiling Bertie Ahern led in his troops. The public gallery was heaving. The press gallery packed. The Dáil chamber filling up. Everyone waiting for Bertie.

It was a quarter to four in the afternoon. Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008. It was the end of the Ahern era.

Eleven years as Taoiseach. Fourteen years as Fianna Fáil leader. All over now for Bertie. His backbenchers looked stunned. His Ministers looked pensive.

The Taoiseach's smile remained fixed, his chin set at a confident tilt, as he strode purposefully around the chamber railings towards his seat.

When he reached the top of the steps, his deputies, arrayed in descending rows to his right, rose to their feet and applauded. (They had received a text from the whips office earlier in the afternoon, demanding "full attendance" for Leaders' Questions.) The Opposition stayed put, and silent.

Still smiling, the Taoiseach bustled to his place. The applause subsided. The deputies subsided. And Bertie - well, Bertie subsided. He had managed the grand entrance. But now, he looked shattered, gazing listlessly across at the Fine Gael leader.

It was a difficult situation for Enda Kenny. Until yesterday morning's shock announcement, he had been preparing a major attack on the Taoiseach's suitability for office and his ability to govern in the teeth of the growing scandal over his finances.

Enda was generous, if somewhat measured, in his tributes to the Taoiseach, who will leave office on May 6th. (Although in true Bertie fashion, it appears that he won't officially go until May 7th, because the Dáil is closed the day before.) "This day had to come," said Enda. There was genuine regret in his voice.

It's always the same in Dáil Éireann, when a big star finally falls from the political sky. It may seem strange to hear politicians, who have spent years lacerating somebody from across the floor, suddenly standing up and expressing regret when the outcome they demanded so vociferously, for so long, has finally been realised.

But there is a strange solidarity among the breed. When one of their number is taken down, there is a genuine sense of sadness. There but for the grace of God go us, and all that.

Enda asked about the date for the Lisbon referendum. He could have been reading his favourite passages from Finnegans Wake for all the attention people were paying.

Bertie appeared to be listening, but his head was down. He bit his lips, the picture of desolation. Was he that shocked? Had his decision been so sudden? Was it really an overnight thing, as some were saying? What prompted him to make his announcement in such a rushed manner? Is there more to come from the tribunal? But yesterday was not the day for such speculation.

The drama began just before half nine yesterday morning, when journalists were told to be at Government Buildings by 10am for an announcement by the Taoiseach. No further details were given.

A large crowd galloped to Merrion Street as rumour spread that Ahern was going to announce he was stepping down as Taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fáil. Journalists, photographers and television camera crews squeezed into the small space at the foot of the main staircase.

A plain wooden lectern was placed on a landing many steps above the journalists. Meanwhile, RTÉ television went live, with newsreader Bryan Dobson plucked from a radio discussion on Irish Protestants to anchor the broadcast, and a dishevelled looking Charlie Bird blinking excitedly into the studio camera.

The Taoiseach had yet to announce his intentions, as former Labour leader Pat Rabbitte was intoning on radio: "he has done the State some service". Back at Government Buildings, the media waited. Earlier, in scenes reminiscent of the Oklahoma land grab, they swarmed at great speed from the holding security hut at the gates to the main building. Once inside, their simmering sense of excitement verged on the hysterical as the Taoiseach kept everyone waiting.

Finally, at 10.48, Bertie Ahern appeared at the top of the stairs. He stopped and stared into the distance, above and beyond the crowd and out into the wider world.

Was he a man facing his destiny, or had his eyes been drawn to the large red banner that a number of his constituency workers had unfurled across the road in front of the gate? "Ballybough Loves Bertie." Then, having struck a statesmanlike pose, the Taoiseach began to walk down the stairs, a large group of Ministers behind him. It was an impressive show of strength. This was not a man about to hand in his resignation and scuttle away.

He reached the lectern. He looked down, paused, and looked up again.

For a second, just a split second, there was total silence. The chatter stopped. The sound of the camera shutters stopped.

Then Bertie spoke.

His hand trembled a little as he held his script. He sounded nervous and his voice wavered a little.

Above his head, his staff looked down from the marble balcony two floors up. From top advisers to the cleaners, they came out to listen to Bertie. Some started to cry.

The Ministers clustered around their leader, Brian Cowen at his shoulder, looking grave. The two Marys - Coughlan and Hanafin - seemed close to tears. This was emotional stuff.

Bertie delivered the most difficult speech of his life with dignity and determination. Once or twice, his voice thickened. Unlike in his interview with Bryan Dobson, there was no doubting the Taoiseach's pain.

His statement can be dissected at another time.

"I know in my heart of hearts that I have done no wrong, and wronged no one," he said.

But Bertie's problem is that too many people, in their heart of hearts, do not believe him now when he says he has done no wrong.

His fingers played nervously with the end of his jacket as he spoke. Cyprian Brady, his constituency colleague and loyal supporter, stood to one side, like a boxing trainer watching his man going down, in slow motion. Seán Haughey, who witnessed his own father's fall from grace, looked on.

Statement over, Bertie Ahern turned and went back up the stairs, his Ministers applauding and the applause of his staff ringing around the lofty marbled hall.

An hour later, Enda Kenny was on the plinth calling for a general election. (Marvellous move there by the Fine Gael leader, looking to go to the country when the nation is riding a wave of sympathy for poor Bertie.) Various Ministers were talking down their chances of going for the leadership. Brian Lenihan, meanwhile, was ruling himself out. Tánaiste Lenihan? Where did we hear that before? The action moved back to the Dáil in the afternoon, when Bertie took Leaders' Questions.

He looked awful. He looked sad and rather shocked. His backbenchers sat quietly, particularly the new intake, getting their education in the cruel nature of politics very early in their careers.

Labour's Eamon Gilmore welcomed the Taoiseach's decision to resign. He appreciated how difficult this was for him to do. And Eamon said what opposition leaders have been saying ever since the dawn of parliament: he had done his duty as he saw it, but he did it "on a political basis, not on a personal basis".

Bertie, head down, slumped sideways in his seat, nodded.

Above anyone else, Bertie, the most successful politician of his generation, should know the score. But yet again, his demeanour showed that no matter how much a politician knows the end is coming, it still hits them like a train when it does.

The atmosphere in the chamber was flat. Perhaps Bertie's news had come as a shock, but not a surprise.

The Taoiseach made a second statement. It echoed the one he made in Government Buildings. His party applauded him again when he finished. So, too, did the Labour benches. But not all on the Fine Gael side afforded the Taoiseach this courtesy, Enda Kenny included.

Then the Ceann Comhairle acknowledged Ahern's enormous contribution to the nation and the "countless generations of yet unborn Irish men and women".

We're still scratching our head over that one. One time, when in one of his put-upon modes, Bertie complained that if the cat had kittens, he'd be blamed for it. We fell to wondering if there was another reason for his hasty exit.

He stayed a long time in the chamber. When a vote was called, party members came over to wish him well. Conor Lenihan seemed particularly distraught.

Meanwhile, Brian Cowen and Willie O'Dea shared a joke, laughing uproariously while Brian Lenihan looked on. Biffo took off his glasses and wiped his eyes.

Finally, Bertie's business in the house was finished for the day. But he sat with Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern and the rest of his party as he spoke on the Lisbon Treaty Bill. But Bertie didn't seem to be listening. He was gazing into space, a faraway look in his eyes . . .

How could this have happened?