This article is from page 18 of the 2008-04-08 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 18 JPG
how he believed “most definitely” that Ahern was not corrupt, but made the fatal mistake of not taking things too seriously.
“I was never in the Government dealing with him when he was Taoi- seach. From what I could gather, he had a very decisive and efficient way of doing business. Apparently he adopted a lot of the high-powered strategy that was adopted by previ- ous taoisigh, such as CJ Haughey, be- cause he made decisions and where there were problems he appointed sub-committees to deal with it,’ said DEA
“IT had a very detailed discussion with him when I was in social wel- fare, because I was part of the social partnership as well back in 1991 and just before the 1992 General Elec- tion. If you remember, there was an all-out strike threatened at that time.
‘He was very involved in trying to find a resolution that made sure that the whole country wouldn’t close down.”
The Cooraclare man believes that uniting the Fianna Fail party and tackling the Northern Ireland issue will be remembered as his greatest achievements.
“I would say bringing together Fi- anna Fail and bringing Fianna Fail along with his views on Northern Ireland, because it was very much d1- vided at the time he took over, that is
what he will be remembered for.”
Daly said that when Ahern took over as leader, there were a lot of di- vision, most of which was a throw- back to the arms trial.
“There was a lot of tension and friction in Fianna Fail. I would say the most important thing from the country’s point of view was that he was able to bring along the Fianna Fail party with him on the negotia- tions on Northern Ireland, because
at one stage there wasn’t a chance you could go down the road he was going. There were a lot of people writing to the British asking them to declare their interest in getting out of Ireland, that kind of stuff.
“IT remember he shot down a cou- ple of lads there at a meeting in En- nis one night when they were saying Ireland, the 32-county republic and all this, and he said do you want this killing to go on for another 30 years.
‘He had the charismatic approach in the Fianna Fail party, healing any divisions and bringing people who weren’t maybe supporters of his in1- tially on side. The most important thing was he brought a party that was very nervous about how it would set- tle Northern Ireland along to his way of thinking. If he hadn’t done that, he wouldn’t be able to get the results.”
And the Fianna Fail leader’s big- gest weakness?
“T think he would have underesti- mated and been a bit carefree with things that were serious. I think he was a bit carefree with the tribunal at the start, and he didn’t give it the at- tention and the time that it deserved. I think he thought it just might not work out the way it is working out.
“My own view was that the tribu- nal approach was a very, very big mistake, because first of all after the beef tribunal, to the best of my knowledge, there was a decision made that there would be no tribunal Set up ever again.
“There were some recommenda- tions made in the beef tribunal that were implemented that would prob- ably have been done anyway, but there was a lot of time and effort and expense involved in the beef tribunal and my understanding is that after the beef tribunal report there would never again be one set up and then they went down the road of setting up tribunals all over the place.
“T always felt that the courts and the police and the fraud squad and CAB were the people to investigate these kind of things, not tribunals, and I was very much opposed to the Dail going down that road of setting up in- vestigations within the house itself. I refused to chair one of those. I didn’t think it was a politician’s job to get involved in what was more a legal matter and maybe more of a job for id elomr-elmeeyw LB (oe
“If he (Ahern) went down through his books and his accounts and his finances in detail he would not have got into the situation he got into, in my opinion.”