A chara, - There is a strong scent of sour grapes about the attacks launched by the Opposition on the Taoiseach in recent days. The behaviour of Enda Kenny has been ghastly. Having ignored the issue of the Taoiseach's finances throughout the election campaign, the Fine Gael leader now seeks to cast Bertie Ahern as the devil incarnate.
Surely, if Mr Kenny felt the Taoiseach's finances were so rotten that he can now accuse him of lying, he should have felt obliged to say so during the election. He didn't; and it is clear that the reason he didn't was because he knew such cheap shots would backfire on him. Now safely back in Opposition, he is once again launching absurd attacks on Bertie Ahern in the hope that, having been unable to bring him down at the polls, he can bring him down through innuendo.
Let us remember why Bertie Ahern has had to endure the recent grotesque, forensic examination of his private affairs. Tom Gilmartin alleged that the Taoiseach took money from Owen O'Callaghan. Despite four days of questioning at the tribunal, encompassing the examination of transactions over many years, not one shred of evidence has been produced to support Mr Gilmartin's allegations. Yet even this won't satisfy an Opposition which seems still to be bitter that the people resoundingly preferred Bertie Ahern to Enda Kenny last May.
As Mary Hanafin accurately put it in the Dáil last week, the Taoiseach has now faced two votes of confidence in his leadership this year. He was backed firstly by the people of Ireland and latterly by the people's representatives in Dáil Éireann. It's time the Opposition accepted what is quite clear: that Bertie Ahern is not a corrupt man and has not profited, nor sought to profit, from his public service.
They should allow him to do the job which he was elected to do.
And when they next oppose him, as they inevitably must, it should
be on policy not personality. - Is mise,
DECLAN HARMON,
Whitethorn Crescent,
Dublin 20.