Profile: In addition to his day job, and his role in the peace process, Dermot Ahern will spend the next six months trekking around Europe selling the UN, writes Deaglán de Bréadún, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
From Louth to Lithuania, from Carlingford to Croatia, Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern is going global. Well, pan-European at any rate. This week he was appointed as special envoy by Kofi Annan, to sell the secretary general's plan for UN reform to the EU, Eastern Europe, Russia and Israel.
Having started his career in Ireland's smallest county, Ahern now has a constituency that ranges from the Atlantic to the Urals and beyond. He has to visit or at least make meaningful contact with 47 states between now and September when a world summit in New York will rule on the reform package.
The UN announcement was gushing in tone, describing Ahern as one of four "prominent world leaders" appointed to travel the world by the secretary general. "All four have vast political experience, profound knowledge of international relations, and are committed to the cause of the United Nations." In each country under their remit, the four envoys are meant to "engage political leaders, civil society representatives, academics and the media". Their main purpose is to secure agreement on "the most far-reaching reforms of the UN in its 60-year history". The other three are all ex-officeholders: former Indonesian foreign minister Ali Alatas, former Mozambique president Joaquin Chissano and former Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo.
Each has his own region and six months of frenetic travel is in prospect for them all. Ahern has cited the Taoiseach as his role model in this regard: Bertie Ahern thinks nothing of flying to Rome for lunch with Silvio Berlusconi, then on to Vienna for afternoon tea with Chancellor Schussel, followed by an overnight in Stockholm prior to a working breakfast with prime minister Goran Persson with a touchdown in The Hague to meet the Dutch head of government, Jan Peter Balkenende, and then back to Dublin for a party meeting and a pint in Fagan's of Drumcondra before heading for bed.
Like his namesake, Dermot Ahern has an undisputed capacity for work and the hard slog. His critics concede that he is smart and tough but wonder if he can adapt to the world stage and whether he has "the vision thing". His political experience is considerable but narrowly focused and, as a relatively new minister, he is still working to acquire the "profound knowledge of international relations" attributed to him in the UN press release.
A British politician attached to the Northern Ireland Office once declared that he had "met the Taoiseach and I'm going to meet his brother Dermot next week". But although there is no family relationship between the two Aherns, they are very close, both personally and politically.
ACCORDING TO FIANNA Fáil insiders: "Dermot is always available to perform sensitive tasks for Bertie behind the scenes, to make contacts and to sort things out in a whole range of areas." When it comes to Northern Ireland, the younger Ahern is described as "a major confidant" of the Taoiseach. With a political base close to the Border and the "bandit country" of South Armagh, Dermot Ahern is seen as having his finger on the pulse of developments in relation to the Provisional IRA and its associates. But unlike some Fianna Fáil TDs in Border areas down the years, Ahern has been careful to draw a constitutional line between himself and the militants. Yet he refuses to yield the mantle of republicanism to Gerry Adams and co. He generally refers to the "Provisional movement" rather than "the republican movement", since he would regard himself and his party as the true Irish republicans. Whatever about in Dublin 4, these distinctions are understood in places like Dundalk. Ahern has also been sharply critical of the criminality, particularly smuggling, practised by certain elements and has called for an end to "red-diesel republicanism".
He wasn't long in office as Minister for Foreign Affairs before making his first gaffe. Speaking to the media outside Hillsborough Castle he held out the prospect of Sinn Féin entering government in the Republic, once the IRA was off the scene for good. It probably helped the climate in negotiations but the timing was poor and it didn't go down well in the wider world, particularly when it was followed within a relatively short period by the Northern Bank robbery, the killing of Robert McCartney and other outrages.
IT WAS AN unusual mistake for Ahern, who has an eye for the good media opportunity and has even put his own man, ex-Irish Press journalist Richard Moore, in charge of the press section at Iveagh House, a post normally reserved for career civil servants. After the tsunami in South-East Asia, Ahern jetted off to the region accompanied by the heads of four development agencies. Even Goal's John O'Shea, normally the Government's fiercest critic on development issues, called him "the Messiah" on the Late Late Show.
This week O'Shea said he hoped to take part in a joint visit to Africa with the Minister to persuade him to stop Irish aid to governments O'Shea regards as corrupt, eg in Ethiopia and Uganda. But O'Shea is worried Ahern's new role as an envoy will distract the Minister's attention from Africa, and indeed the Goal director feels the four appointments were made by Kofi Annan in a bid to shore up the UN's declining credibility.
But if it all works out for Ahern, his envoy role will give him enhanced credibility on the national and international stage. The Dundalk solicitor has come a long way since he made it into the Dáil by a hair's breadth in the 1987 general election. Still a freshman TD, he was deputed by then-party leader Charles Haughey to accompany the Fianna Fáil guru on republican affairs, Dr Martin Mansergh, to meetings in Dundalk with Gerry Adams and other Sinn Féin representatives in 1988. It was a significant development which broke the ice between government and Sinn Féin in the early stages of the peace process.
In June 1997, as Fianna Fáil was about to re-enter government and prior to appointing Ray Burke as minister for foreign affairs, the incoming Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, asked Dermot Ahern to go to London to ask Joseph Murphy jnr of structural engineering firm JMSE whether it had given money to Ray Burke in 1989. Ahern reported back to his leader that no money had been given and he brought back similar news from a second meeting with Murphy a few days later at Fitzer's Restaurant in Dublin's Dawson Street. But evidence later emerged that JMSE had given Burke £30,000 (€38,092) and that Bertie Ahern had known this already.
NONE OF THIS has impeded Ahern's political progress. As an associate puts it, having been government chief whip for a brief period during the early 1990s, "he shot up the TAM ratings" under Bertie Ahern's leadership, becoming minister for social, community and family affairs in 1997, then minister for communications, marine and natural resources after the 2002 election, before taking over from Brian Cowen at the Department of Foreign Affairs last September.
The mandarins in Iveagh House rhapsodised about Cowen, whose undisputed intellectual capacity was admired by the "permanent government". Ahern keeps a greater distance and this is seen in the fact that he has been known to conduct press interviews away from the eagle eye of the civil servants and their digital recording machines.
The son of a teacher from west Cork who settled in Co Louth, Dermot Ahern turned 50 in February. Married, with two teenage daughters, he is a devoted family man who tends to leave Leinster House at close of business and head straight home rather than lingering in the Dáil bar. Absence from his family will add to the burden in the next six months. His main leisure interest has always been soccer, whether as player or spectator, and he also enjoys windsurfing and skiing. He played for an Oireachtas soccer XI against a House of Commons selection at Old Trafford two years ago.
His firm intention is that other ministerial work will not suffer due to his new role and he has made it clear to Annan that he will remain heavily involved in the peace process. Although generally calm in demeanour, Ahern does not suffer fools gladly and there are certain issues that get him going. Sources say he gets particularly annoyed "when people say Fianna Fáil is right-wing".
How will he fare in party terms after the expected departure of Bertie Ahern, some time in the next four years? Cowen is still the front-runner for the leadership, by a country mile.
Although Micheál Martin has been damaged by recent revelations of mismanagement in the Department of Health, he still has time to recover. However, as a soccer aficionado, Dermot Ahern knows there can be times when an open goal presents itself and, if that happens, he will know what to do.
The Ahern File
Who is he?
Ireland's globetrotter-in-chief as Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Why is he in the news?
Kofi Annan has made him a regional special envoy to sell UN reform from the Atlantic to the Urals.
Most appealing characteristic
Diligent worker.
Least appealing characteristic
Bush-like ability to mangle the language, eg "tsanumi" instead of "tsunami"
Most likely to say
"Ok Bertie, I'll get on to that right away"
Least likely to say
"Party leader - not me!"