Tracing the Teflon Taoiseach

Politics: Martyn Turner's cartoons in The Irish Times have been an essential part of the commentary on Irish politics over the past three decades. To turn out such funny, pointed and politically astute work day in day out is nothing short of genius. If a picture is worth 1,000 words, what is a cartoon worth? In the deft hands of Turner, many more.

His cartoons have fixed the image many people retain of the great political events and personalities of recent Irish history. In the preface to the book he recalls how the idea for one of his great cartoons about Charlie Haughey - "I recognised you at once, you're the man who won the Tour de France" - came to him late one afternoon. He had just 35 minutes to draw the cartoon and get it to the 6pm bus to Dublin so that it could appear in the following day's paper.

That is why Turner is so brilliant. It is not just that his cartoons convey such political insight; they reflect the immediate political reality of the day. To come up with such work against the deadline of a daily newspaper is some feat.

Turner has been contributing cartoons to The Irish Times since 1971 and became the paper's political cartoonist in 1976. Up Every Tree is his 17th book and it is entirely appropriate that its publication coincided with the Taoiseach's latest feats of political wizardry. It is hard to think of any other politician anywhere who cold have converted a potential disaster like the payments controversy into a political plus. To have emerged politically stronger for having accepted money for personal use is something that has left his opponents scratching their heads.

Of course Up Every Tree refers to the controversy surrounding Ray Burke, which blew up in 1997, immediately after Ahern became Taoiseach. The foreign minister was forced to resign but, in the first of a series of controversies that have followed a similar pattern, far from being damaged by his claim to have looked up every tree in north Co Dublin before appointing Ray Burke, the Taoiseach emerged from the scandal with his reputation enhanced.

This book contains a record of similar feats of political escapology by Bertie during almost a decade in high office. Each year since 1997 gets a chapter of its own and the cartoons remind us of just how many times the Taoiseach looked political disaster in the face and emerged unscathed.

It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity of the political world that Turner illuminates so well.

Stephen Collins is Political Correspondent of The Irish Times

Up Every Tree: The Bumper Book of Bertie By Martyn Turner Gill and Macmillan, 177pp. €24.99