Mr Albert Reynolds was encouraged "from the very top" of the Fianna Fail party to contest the presidential nomination and had stood in the last general election to make himself available for this, according to his son, Philip.
Mr Reynolds said his father had "paid the price all along" for removing the former leader of the party, Mr Charles Haughey, and that had "raised its ugly head again."
His father was "very disappointed" at his defeat by Prof Mary McAleese, but he would not consider trying to get the nomination of four county councils.
"He had a feeling that he had been committed a lot of support over the last number of weeks of canvassing the parliamentary party and that support didn't hold up yesterday," Mr Reynolds told Pat Kenny on RTE Radio 1 yesterday.
Asked whether his father had been "shafted," he replied: "Well, `shafted' is a word I've seen written in a few of the papers this morning. I wouldn't like to use words like that. I think it's for other people to draw the conclusions as to what happened."
From "the very top in the party he was asked to run for this position. He stayed on in the last general election to make himself available to do so. He had encouragement from all angles of the party and, as I say, from the top of the party as well.
"And in that situation, to allow his name to go forward and to see what happened yesterday, I think that explains the disappointment."
Mr Kenny asked Mr Reynolds if by "the top of the party" he meant that "Bertie encouraged him to put his hat in the ring."
He replied: "I don't want to add fuel to any fire but all I'm saying to you is that . . . there was a lot of speculation as to whether he would stand in the last general election or not and there were reasons why he stood and that was one of the reasons why he stood."
His family had discussed "whether we were prepared to take inevitably what was going to happen, what was going to be written and what was going to be said about him."
Mr Kenny suggested the Taoiseach might have been concerned about this and rather than having to "ventilate" issues such as the beef tribunal again, he had decided to "throw Albert to the wolves".
Mr Reynolds replied: "If that was the case that should have been thought of long before the encouragement was given to allow himself get into that position. Certainly, from Albert's point of view, he has no problem with any one of those issues . . . We know that every time the man's name is mentioned, follows the beef tribunal, follows the Masri passports, follows the fall of the last government.
"But each one of those issues has been looked into in depth and I'm happy, as he's happy, as his team were happy that there are clear and definitive answers to any one of those."