FORMER TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern has said he would "relish" leading the country as it faces into grave economic uncertainty.
Mr Ahern said it would not be his first time facing such an adverse situation, referring to his handling of the currency crisis of the early 1990s when he was minister for finance.
"I would have in a lot of ways relished the challenge of dealing with the [current] difficulties," he said.
The former taoiseach, speaking to The Irish Times, said the crisis of 1992 had presented a "hell of a challenge".
"Every day you were wondering where the Irish pound was going; and you were fighting off devaluation."
Turning to the current situation, he said: "You know from a political point of view I would have managed the challenge. But, as we know, that's life. It wasn't to be."
At the same time, he strongly rejected the contention that economic policies from his time in government were responsible for the crisis. He pointed to the low debt-to-GDP ratio in the past decade saying it insulated the State against a "bumpy period" in the economic cycle.
"The opposition continually attack me about the property market [saying] the price of houses was too high," he continued. "But we tried to get supply and demand into equilibrium.
"Of course the property market slowed down ultimately, not only here but all over the world. And now they say it's something to do with our policies.
"Granted, [property] was over-priced. We all knew it was over-priced and the correction had to happen in the market. Unfortunately, it happened as the consequence of a credit squeeze internationally," he said.
Mr Ahern was speaking in advance of the screening by RTÉ of Bertie, a four-part documentary about his life which begins on Monday night.
The series, directed by Steve Carson, is made by Mint which also made the earlier high-profile series, Haughey (2005), and Fine Gael: A Family at War (2004).
A request by The Irish Times for a preview copy of the series was turned down by RTÉ.
Over 70 friends, associates and political colleagues were interviewed for the series including Mr Ahern's wife, Miriam, from whom he is separated, his daughters Georgina and Cecelia, and many of his associates, including Barry English, Joe Burke, Chris Wall, Dave McKenna, Paddy Duffy and Des Richardson.
His former partner Celia Larkin declined to participate.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair is also interviewed as are Mary Harney, Charlie McCreevy and Brian Lenihan.
Mr Carson said he submitted the idea to RTÉ in August 2006, a month before the disclosure of the digout loans to Mr Ahern from 1992. Kevin Dawson, RTÉ's commissioning editor for factual programming, said that one of the motivations behind making the series was the contradiction about the former taoiseach that for such a well-known figure, he was surprisingly little known.
"His own daughter Cecelia says in the series that even as his child she would feel that he is unknowable in some way. She could talk to him for 15 minutes about something and afterwards realise that there was no deep communication," said Mr Dawson.
Mr Ahern yesterday said that he was not a complicated person. "Maybe the conspiracy theory is that there is no conspiracy theory," he said.
An associate also told the film-makers that Mr Ahern first began planning to become taoiseach in 1977, within weeks of first being elected to the Dáil.
Mr Ahern said this was not so. He also said he did not want the series to be made and agreed to be interviewed himself only in July of this year.
"I was faced with only two options then, not to do an interview or to do an interview and have it included in the programme as they saw fit. What I decided was to do the interview and at least put across my story." He neither encouraged nor discouraged friends to participate.
Not having yet seen the programme, he said the "acid test" for him would be the amount of time allotted to his personal finances compared to his work on the North and the economy.
"The controversy of the tribunal-related stuff was effectively an 18-month period of my life. It will be interesting to put a stop-watch on the programme's four hours and see how much 18 months gets out of 57 years [his age]."
