Bad timing sees Bertie miss Aer Lingus float: Bertie Ahern has had a bad run of it. After avoiding the Aer Lingus privatisation for years, he would never have expected to be mired in the biggest controversy of his time as Taoiseach at the very moment that the national airline was floated. But that's what has come to pass.

It would be ironic if it weren't such an egregious example of the perils of Government vacillation in the face of a straightforward decision.

Aer Lingus was scheduled for flotation in 2001, but it nearly went to the wall after the tumultuous events of September 11th.

In spite of an extraordinary recovery engineered by then chief executive, Willie Walsh, the Government delayed on privatisation for years as Bertie all but capitulated to the demands of the airline's ever-angry unions.

Walsh and his team left and the most benign conditions for privatisation passed as the price of oil crept upward and global political situation worsened.

With the flotation finally reaching the execution stage this week, attention was deflected from the IPO by the controversy over loans that the Taoiseach took from friends long ago in 1993.

Bertie's very moment of maximum vulnerability with hardline friends in Siptu's aviation branch was obscured by an even bigger moment of maximum political vulnerability. For all the wrong reasons, the flotation didn't cause a single blip for Bertie.