THE CAMPAIGNER:Ahern designed and led the most formidable urban political machine ever seen in this State, writes NOEL WHELAN
BERTIE AHERN learnt his political campaigning techniques in his teens. The youngest son in a house full of Fianna Fáil activists, he was appointed director of postering for the local party at 15. Over the following four decades he designed, built and led the most formidable and well-resourced urban political machine ever seen in this country.
Ahern was first elected to Dáil Éireann for the Dublin Finglas constituency in 1977. Four years later, in the newly-drawn Dublin Central constituency, he took the first seat, beating his colleague George Colley in the process.
He has taken the first seat in that constituency in each election since. Since 1982 he has always polled more than 10,000 first preferences. He polled two quotas in 1989, and came close to doing so again in 2007.
The Ahern machine operated on a year-round campaign footing, not just in election year, but every year.
Ahern enjoys nothing more than knocking at doors. Even as Taoiseach he went on regular walkabouts in Dublin Central, often on his own. Canvassing is his exercise and operates as a type of therapy for him. Reconnecting with friendly voters was his antidote to hostile political or media comment.
On Saturdays and at least one evening each week, several teams were out working door-to-door on Ahern's behalf, not knowing in advance with which team Ahern himself would turn up to canvass.
No matter how demanding the obligations of national office, Ahern put aside Mondays for constituency events and a block of days each Christmas, Easter and September to personally lead a week-long canvassing sweep across the constituency. During the three election campaigns when he was on a nationwide party leader's tour he seldom overnighted out of town. He was always anxious to get back to Dublin Central for the last hour of canvassing and then to retire with his team to Fagans or some other local hostelry to debrief and plan the next day's constituency campaign.
Instead of utilising the traditional cumann structure, Ahern put in place a pyramid of ward leaders and street captains each of whom oversaw leafleting and canvassing in a specific area from which they were also expected to generate a steady flow of representations. If a resident in one house raised concerns about roadworks, lighting or social disorder, then every house on the road got a prompt flyer updating them on the representations which the Taoiseach was making on their behalf.
Even when the growth of apartment developments denied them direct personal contact with some voters, Ahern's operatives set about identifying a supporter in each block and used direct mailings to circumvent the security gates. In recent months, for example, many apartment dwellers received personalised letters from the Taoiseach outlining new proposals for legislation to regulate management companies
This activity was supported by an impressive constituency office based at St Luke's, the townhouse in Drumcondra which operated as his headquarters.
In addition to providing living quarters for a period, it also has large meeting facilities and space for several secretarial support staff. As a Minister and then Taoiseach, Ahern also had the benefit of a dedicated constituency unit in his department staffed by civil servants.
Political infrastructure and personalised advertising on this scale is expensive.
To fund it Ahern and some of his closest associates put in place an extensive and complex fundraising operation. It revolved around an annual fundraising dinner which, given his national political status, attracted some of the city's highest rollers. His fundraising also had a more covert dimension, the veil over which has been lifted at the hearings of the Mahon tribunal. Even that tribunal will find it difficult to establish the true extent of financing involved in Ahern's political operation, not least because some of the monies were intermingled with personal expenditure. However, it must have run to the equivalent of €100,000 in a non-election year, and perhaps twice or three times that in an election year.
Over the last three decades Ahern has maintained his massive vote notwithstanding dramatic shifts in demographic patterns in Dublin Central and numerous boundary redraws.
He and his party in Dublin Central always faced strong opponents like Independent Tony Gregory and Labour's Joe Costelloe. In the 1990s he also had to contend with the formidable Fine Gael operation of Jim Mitchell and more recently they saw off a strong challenge from Sinn Féin.
Indeed, so strong was the Ahern brand across north Dublin that it helped his brother Maurice to win a local seat in Cabra and his brother Noel to win a Dáil seat in Dublin North West. The machine's dominance in Dublin Central reached its peak in the 2007 election when alongside the Taoiseach it secured the election of his lieutenant Cyprian Brady, who had just 987 of his own first preferences.
Many have copied the Ahern campaigning model over the years, but few have come close to matching it.