The Taoiseach has said that he hopes to lead Fianna Fáil through a third term in government, stepping down before the general election likely to take place in 2012.
In an interview yesterday on RTÉ's This Week programme, Mr Ahern said it was his intention that the current Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrat coalition would serve its full term, so there would not be a general election before the summer of 2007.
While that election would be his last as leader of Fianna Fáil, he hoped to lead Fianna Fáil back into government for a third consecutive term in 2007 and he looked forward to that government running its course until 2012.
Pointing out that he would be 60 in 2011, he suggested that he might remain party leader until then. "If Fianna Fáil is returned to government in 2007, I will stay that term, but I won't be around for the fourth term."
Regarding his commitment to finish this Government's five-year term, he said: "As I said at the start of this period, my intention is to go to summer 2007, and that's it. The Tánaiste and I are determined to finish the mandate of this Government. We have no other intentions and we have no Plan B and I don't think we need any Plan B."
He said that Fianna Fáil would keep its options open ahead of the next election as to who it might subsequently go into government with. It was unlikely that any party would win an overall majority in the future. "I think if Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats can continue to work together, I would be very happy. From my point of view, if it's Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats, I will be one happy camper."
Regarding the forthcoming by-elections, it was a matter for the Tánaiste and PD leader to decide whether to call on her party supporters to give lower preferences to Fianna Fáil. "That would certainly be helpful," he said, adding that he would be calling on Fianna Fáil supporters to transfer to the PDs.
Asked about his statement last year that he was a socialist, he said: "Socialism, as it is historically understood, is dead. All of the people who carried that ideology in Great Britain and in Europe, they're gone. When I meet the great European leaders of former socialist countries in Europe now, half of them would be to the right of Margaret Thatcher.
"My brand of socialism is the one that people now want to follow. And that is the one which runs the country's finances well, generates the revenue where people can have jobs, people can be wealth-creators, and then there is a large pot available to help the services."
Governments had to work to generate resources. "It is only when you have a good and healthy economy that the kind of socialist views I have of being able to spend and share that wealth can be implemented."
On the matter of the hiring of consultant Ms Monica Leech by Mr Martin Cullen, when he was minister for the environment, Mr Ahern said that he would await the facts. "We will await the report and then whatever political action is necessary I will reflect on it. I won't reflect on it before I see what the report is."