THE POLITICIAN:Elections reflected Bertie Ahern's ability to appeal outside the traditional Fianna Fáil vote, writes MARK HENNESSY
HAUNTED BY the years of division within Fianna Fáil during the leadership years of Charles J Haughey and Albert Reynolds, Bertie Ahern in power was the arch-compromiser.
For 11 years, Bertie Ahern led three coalition governments of changing hues and tones, depending in turn upon the Progressive Democrats, Independents and the Greens.
Excepting crises caused by his own personal finances in more recent times and allegations against Ray Burke a decade ago, they were remarkably stable, so unlike the unstable regimes of the early 1980s.
In part, that was because there was plenty of money to go around and, partly, it was because Ahern was nearly always prepared to concede on policy to maintain harmony.
From his election to the Dáil in 1977, Ahern had a bird's eye view of the destructive disunity evident under Haughey - a time when fear often stalked Fianna Fáil's Leinster House corridors.
"Then, Fianna Fáil TDs signed their votes 'inside their pockets' at parliamentary party meetings, as it was said at the time, so scared were they that they would be the next ones to be intimidated," said one witness.
Once elected as Fianna Fáil leader in 1994, Ahern's position was not truly secured until after he had won the 1997 general election, largely due to his own popularity with voters.
Shortly afterwards, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, who pulled out at the last minute from challenging him in 1994, was safely despatched to the European Court of Auditors in Luxembourg.
From the beginning, Ahern was determined that the FF/Progressive Democrat alliance, plus Independents, would last five years when some doubted that it could.
Within months, he had begun the habit of a pre-Cabinet meeting with PD leader, Mary Harney, where issues were discussed before going to the full ministerial gathering.
Faced with problems, Ahern delayed decisions, seeking always to prevent division, often at the cost of facing up to issues that needed to be tackled more quickly.
Ahern's own intelligence network, fuelled by attending dozens of official engagements every week, meant that he often saw potential minefields before others.
Indeed, he was often in a position to tell Ministers to consult particular backbenchers, only for them to find out when they did that Ahern knew far more than they did about what was happening within the party.
The 1997 administration struggled over the difficulties caused by subsequently proven allegations that Ray Burke - whom Ahern had appointed to Cabinet despite the concerns of others - had taken money from developers.
Pushed by the Progressive Democrats, he agreed to the creation of the planning tribunal and conceded terms of reference that were far wider than he initially wanted - a decision he has, no doubt, often regretted since.
However, it was conflict over Ahern's desire to build a national stadium - a project that became known as the "Bertie Bowl" - that caused the most toxic confrontation between him and the PDs.
The issue was brought to Cabinet with no forewarning and on a day when Harney was out of the country in contravention of all usual cabinet rules, until Bobby Molloy called for a time-out.
Again and again, the issue came back on the Cabinet's agenda, leading Michael McDowell to accuse him during the 2002 general election campaign of having Ceausescu-like notions.
To this day, Ahern still insists that he was right - most recently before hundreds of top business people some months ago in Dublin - and that the stadium should have been built, seeing opponents of the idea as people of no vision.
His tendency to delay dealing with crises until he had to face up to them returned during the controversy about Philip Sheedy, who was prosecuted for dangerous driving causing an accident that killed a mother.
Jailed for four years, Sheedy's sentence was cut in half on appeal, driving the case on to the front pages and threatening the survival of the government.
Eventually, the saga claimed the careers of one Supreme Court judge, Hugh O'Flaherty, who had thought that he was destined for a European Investment Bank job, and one judge from the High Court, Cyril Kelly.
And it could have been worse. Ahern's office had made representations on Sheedy's behalf, a fact that he concealed from the Dáil when he faced Opposition questions.
That decision was bizarre, because his office's involvement was known about within Government and official circles and, inevitably, would spread wider, as it did.
His desire to avoid confrontation meant that he was sometimes at the mercy of Cabinet colleagues, particularly when they were as driven as his minister for finance, Charlie McCreevy.
McCreevy led the tax cuts push, particularly the income tax individualisation changes, which Ahern was nervous about but did not block, even though his doubts were shared by top officials.
Disliking controversy, Ahern was prepared to pull other Ministers - less powerful ones than McCreevy, until he too had to be shifted to Brussels in 2004 - out of portfolios.
Séamus Brennan left transport because he become mired in difficulties with the trade unions - always an important constituency for Ahern - over CIÉ and Aer Lingus.
Noel Dempsey was transferred from education after his relationships with teacher unions deteriorated to the point of no return.
Martin Cullen left environment after the electronic voting debacle, while his successor, Dick Roche, was moved when his popularity subsequently waned.
"Sometimes decisions were made for the wrong reasons," said one politician with ministerial experience. "A successful Minister for him was one who did not get into trouble."
Given the battles that she has had to fight, Mary Harney, in the view of the same individual, would not still be in the Department of Health and Children if she was a Fianna Fáil Minister.
Ahern developed strong ties with Independents, especially from 1997 to 2002, and the relationships lasted long after they were as necessary to him as to the Independents.
"He was always terribly anxious to ensure that the Independents were looked after and to ensure that they were kept," one Cabinet minister told The Irish Times last week.
THE CONNECTION made with one of the Independents, Donegal North East's Harry Blaney, allowed him to end one of the longest-running splits in the party caused by Neil Blaney's Arms Trial split in the 1970s.
Once Blaney was replaced in the Dáil by his son, Niall, Ahern worked hard over years to bring the 2,000-strong Independent Fianna Fáil organisation back into the party.
It was not easy, because relations in the county between the two sides, embittered by 30 years of vicious fighting during Dáil and local elections, were poisonous.
The push was perhaps not even fully justified in electoral terms, since Fianna Fáil was confident that it would hold its existing seats in the constituency with or without Blaney.
Ahern though wanted unity, as he again showed in his last-minute stewarding of Mayo TD Beverley Flynn's return to the party fold last month, following her expulsion after she lost her lost RTÉ libel case.
He also wanted to ensure that his own departure from office, even if it came earlier than he had wanted, did not open up new party divisions, even when such an outcome was of little personal advantage.
Admittedly, it could be more than argued that Ahern's opinion did not matter much since his successor, Brian Cowen, was head- and-shoulders over any other of the contenders.
In party terms, he worked to tighten central headquarters' control over the selection of election tickets, and he made election campaigning more professional with the help of US experts.
In each of the elections under his leadership, Fianna Fáil won more seats than its first-preference vote would have justified, reflecting Ahern's ability to appeal outside of the traditional FF vote.
Equally, Ahern's talents at relationship-building have been evident with countless officials, who often went the extra mile for him when they might not have done so for others.
In September 2006, when the "dig-out" story first emerged, some Department of the Taoiseach civil servants were in tears when faced with the very real prospect at one point that he might fall.
The habits have not departed. Preparing to leave office in recent weeks, Ahern spent hours on the telephone saying thank you to many of those with whom he worked in office.
"Some people I know who have got calls have been astonished that he would have bothered to ring them," said one, "but that is what he does. He never makes enemies if he can make a friend."