Pursuit of Ahern's head has embittered relations in Dáil

Opposition's attacks on Ahern have not always been consistent or well-timed, while Brian Cowen may prove more to Labour's liking

IN POLITICS, when a crisis erupts that culminates with a political head being delivered on a plate, opposition parties must perform a delicate balancing act. The criticism has to retain some kind of proportionality and balance; otherwise they will themselves face accusations of being vindictive or opportunist in their attacks.

"Go dance on somebody else's grave," was PJ Mara's famous retort to one virulent attack on then taoiseach Charles Haughey. When Ray Burke was forced to resign over revelations of illicit payments to him in 1997, Bertie Ahern rounded on the opposition in the Dáil for its "persistent hounding of an honourable man . . . on the basis of innuendo and unproven allegations." Junior Minister Pat Carey used almost the same phrase this week when he said that an honourable man had been hounded out of office.

The Opposition's handling of Ahern's dealings with the Mahon tribunal has been a textbook example of over-compensation, especially as far as Fine Gael is concerned. In the space of nine months, Enda Kenny, in particular, has moved from being over-tepid and over-cautious on this issue to the other side of the scale, where some of his criticisms have been close enough to hyperbole.

When the payments controversy initially came to light in September 2006, both Kenny and then Labour leader Pat Rabbitte responded quickly with robust statements calling for clarifications from the Taoiseach.

However, their tunes changed after The Irish Times/TNS mrbi opinion poll the next month, which showed Fianna Fáil had gained ground partly due to sympathy evoked by Ahern's interview with Bryan Dobson on RTÉ.

From that moment on until last May's elections, Ahern's personal life and finances were an exhausted seam for Fine Gael and Labour. It was clear that both parties were convinced that any electoral strategy that was hostile to Ahern personally would backfire. So both steered clear of this thorny topic right up to election day - sometimes in the face of new revelations or further troubling disclosures relating to Ahern's finances.

The immediate prelude to the calling of the election - and the first fortnight - were wholly dominated by Ahern's finances. The Taoiseach surprised everybody by driving to the Áras early on the last Sunday in April to ask the President to dissolve the Dáil. Nobody quibbled with later assessments that this hasty exercise was to ensure Ahern would not have to give evidence at the tribunal until after the election had concluded.

The other intriguing dimension to the start of the campaign was that Ahern was under all kinds of pressure about his finances. It was at this time that it became known that one of the group who contributed to the so-called first dig-out, former NCB boss Padraic O'Connor, had privately told the tribunal that he did not consider himself to be a personal friend of Ahern. The Taoiseach was undoubtedly under enormous pressure but this did not come from the Opposition but from the media. The nadir, as far as Fianna Fáil was concerned, was Ahern's pregnant pause for eight seconds on Henry Street after he refused to answer persistent questions about Padraic O'Connor.

All opposition parties, with the paradoxical exception of the Greens, steered clear of this issue other than making bland observations. Kenny said he would never face the kinds of questions that Ahern was facing at the time. "I'm not asking anybody to look at my ethical reputation. I can certainly confirm that the kinds of questions that are being asked [ about Ahern] are irrelevant in my case."

On the same day, Rabbitte was a little more direct, saying the public had legitimate concerns about Ahern's finances. But, comparatively speaking, it was mild stuff. He continued: "The Taoiseach is the only person who can allay the legitimate unease that is out there among voters by making a clear, definitive and complete statement, but it is entirely a matter for him."

As it transpired, Fianna Fáil scored a notable victory in the election.

In their postmortems, some Fine Gael and Labour TDs were of the opinion that they had erred by not tackling Ahern directly about the issue, especially in the light of new disclosures about Micheal Wall's involvement in the purchase of his house in Drumcondra, Dublin.

Once the election was over, both Opposition parties changed tack. Ahern's appearance at the Mahon tribunal in September came just before the Dáil resumed. The first item on the agenda was a Fine Gael motion of no confidence in Ahern. And on the eve of the debate Labour's new leader Eamon Gilmore called for his resignation.

And since then there has been a more or less unremitting attack, especially from the main Opposition party. In addition to Kenny, senior party figures like Phil Hogan, Fergus O'Dowd and Brian Hayes have rowed in regularly. And one of its new senators, the Dún Laoghaire-based Eugene Regan became a de facto tribunal spokesman for the party, churning out press releases which closely parsed Ahern's evidence for inconsistencies.

Gilmore did most of the running for Labour on the tribunal. And while he didn't pull his punches (openly saying he did not believe the Taoiseach's versions of events), the criticism just couldn't compare with the Fine Gael onslaught - which culminated with some of its spokespeople including Leo Varadkar using terms like "lies" and "perjury".

Pressure continued inside and outside the House. Dáil rules put limits on how often motions of no confidence can be run. So when Fianna Fáil Ministers directed their own bit of retaliation at the Mahon inquiry following Ahern's appearance at the tribunal before Christmas, the Opposition quickly put down a motion of confidence in the tribunal. There was hardly a week that went by between January and April where Fine Gael didn't issue at least one statement pertaining to Ahern's dealings with Mahon. There was also a new tactic by the Opposition that focused on the responsibilities of Tánaiste Brian Cowen.

This is a flavour of Fine Gael's campaign during February. "What has the Taoiseach got to hide from the tribunal?" was the headline of one Enda Kenny release on February 11th. "Taoiseach did not pay his taxes in the 1990s" said another, from Senator Regan on February 21st. "Tánaiste now a willing accomplice in deceit emerging from Dublin Castle," another quoted Kenny as saying.

Fine Gael publicly denied that it had been over-timid in the run-up to the election. It justified its new-found aggression on the grounds that new revelations and disclosures had come to light that were not known in the early months of 2007.

However, the sense that Fine Gael was over-compensating for earlier diffidence and caution became most clear on Wednesday when Ahern announced his resignation. When he appeared on the plinth of Leinster House to give his first public reaction, Kenny continued to ply the criticism, saying that Ahern had bowed to the inevitable and had been forced to resign. He went on to say that Ahern had lost credibility and authority.

Kenny was more tactful when choosing his words later in the Dáil - and warmly acknowledged Ahern's contributions over the course of a decade in power - but many who listened to what he said on the plinth said it lacked a little graciousness on a day when his adversary had decided to step down. His call for a general election also seemed curiously out of kilter and misplaced, and was not taken seriously by any other political party.

It was as if he were completely tone-deaf to the mood music of the day. However, there have also been some hard-to-explain inconsistencies in the Fine Gael approach. Kenny's first public response to Gráinne Carruth's change of evidence came a full 13 days later, by which time Ahern had already made his fateful announcement.

In contrast, Gilmore probably struck a more appropriate balance in tempering his criticisms with praise for Ahern's achievements.

With Brian Cowen as taoiseach, the dynamics will change. Fianna Fáil will now be a far more attractive coalition partner for Labour than it was under Ahern. An experienced politician like Gilmore will not want to leave any hostages to fortune in bringing his party back to government.

In any instance, for Fine Gael, it was a momentary pause in the war of attrition. The very next day, when Ahern applied the word "low-life" to the tribunal, Regan shot out of the traps with a statement accusing Ahern of an inappropriate outburst.

What that showed is that the relationship between the two main parties has become more testy, more adversarial and far more aggressive in the past year. It remains to be seen if this will continue when Cowen takes the top job.

As it is, the hostility levels are already approaching the naked enmity that existed between the rainbow coalition and the Fianna Fáil opposition between 1994 and 1997.

Harry McGee is an Irish Times Political Staff reporter