YouSaid · the spoken record

Bertie Ahern

lines on the record: 69
first: 2023-03-06
most recent: 2023-03-06
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“bottom into Plossus on the other side of it is amazing. And in that period we have, I think our economy has doubled in the last 10 years, but it doubled in the previous 10 years. So we couldn't have done that without the European Union. So I could never understand. I know that was the issue in the referendum. But sure you can see already now most of the industries are looking for people and are all making cases. I think that was fairly obvious at the time, but instead of people who should have known better, in my view, arguing the case why that wasn't a bad thing, they joined the bandwagon and argued the case the other way. And that was the sad thing.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, yeah, yeah. But I tell you, the one thing that the UK and we did under one day was in May 2004. We opened up the border so people could come. But as you know, Alistair, in Dublin today and throughout Ireland, we now have huge multinationals that have come in since then. We were the biggest exporters of software in the world. I think probably still are, even a small country. But what's the reason for that? It's because all of these research groups and all these companies have people from every country in the world. You go in to, say, go down to Google or any of the big ones here. They're all around implying thousands of people, thousands of people, you go in and you'll meet Indians, you'll meet Latin Americans, you'll meet people from every country in Europe all working together on the projects. And that's what's made us. I mean, we all have the problem of immigrants coming from someplace and trying to give them accommodation and you created it. That's a challenge.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Would ever happen? They came back and said, anytime it was ever raised, people said, what's that got to do with the referendum? Nobody said. And then all of a sudden, that's what created. Because as soon as that happened, I remember what Pascal Lame, who was headed at WTO and head of commissioner, he had all the time said, as soon as you create a land border, wherever it is, unfortunately it happened to be on the island of Ireland, but wherever it is, you're going to have to deal with all these issues. And he said that immediately after she made that statement. And here we are six years later grappling with those.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“16, 16. Remember that day, but I remember in 2017 when Theresa May set out the terms, it was January 2017, she set out the terms of what Brexit meant. And the single market, I reckon, was going to go, she was going to say single market will be it. But when she said the customs union was out, and I recently got onto the research and all earnings. I may ask anyone find any reference that was made and anywhere of the customs union in the campaign”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think, you see, the problem with Brexit was that nobody had worked out what it actually meant. I remember in, was it in referendum?”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think they will promise a border pole and there's nothing wrong with that but they equally have to say that the preparatory work has to be completed and then when people understand what they're voting for like the problem that we've learned from Brexit and the problem we've learned from Scottish referendum is that if you haven't got your preparatory work done you should save your money and not have a poll so and our position is probably even more complicated because we're dealing with hundreds of years of history so unless there's a clear question put to the people with the backup arrangements like if you were to have a border poll you wouldn't pass it in the south because people say well how's that going to work forget about the money”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I'd like to, but I'd rather call it a New Ireland because I think the idea United Ireland is linked to my dad's time, you know, where it was they get out and we take over. And that's the last thing you want to know. I mean, the fear sometimes of unionist people is that Sinn F ⁇ in would come back and do what they did on them. That's all stuff that we need to consign to the bin, not to mind history. I'm in favor of the work going on, looking at it and examining it, having Erdogan borrowed at polls would be a disaster and it won't happen. I think really what we want to see is a sustained period of the institutions working. And we have to be conscious that the promise to Republicans at the time was that there would be from time to time a border poll. But I'm afraid time to time has to mean when you have the institutions up and running.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, and what has created all the difficulties? The landboard, the sea border. So I'm afraid that end of it, nobody can argue that it wasn't Brexit. And then what does that start? The argument about Irishness and Britishness. And what do we try and solve in Good Friday Agreement that you could be Irish and British in both? So I'm afraid any fair commentator has to say that the killer blow to us this last seven or eight years has been Brexit.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Since Gordon Brown, and so somebody says, well, the institution's not up to it. Well, if you couldn't even get the people to the meetings, and by the way, I didn't expect a British Prime Minister to be torn up every month if we turned up once a year would have been enough, but not once a decade, and then an awful lot of. So that has been hugely negative. And then all the arguments, like we thought you and I thought we're finished with the border land border and sea border. And Europe had got rid of borders. There was no borders. We would not have been talking about the sea border or the land border except for Brexit.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Up to an east west meeting for a decade. And, you know, I don't be criticizing anyone, but I mean, it took a huge effort even to get Rashi Sunak to go to that Black Boom before Christmas because I think he got it, or at least somebody got it. He”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Try to make those points in the year before the Cameron referendum and nobody really listened. Anyway, we collectively failed to get that through into the equation. But all those fears have come true and it's really been difficult for the last few years. Now, we can't blame Brexit because different things brought down the institutions. But the momentum that we had gained over the years and businesses doing better, more exchanges between North and South, East-West relationships going well. Irish officials, British officials working together. And then it all stops. And the one that I think really was the horror show for me, that people sometimes say we're the institutions good enough in the Good Friday Agreement was what you're designed good enough. And I said, well, they're perfectly well. But what do you do when we couldn't get a British Mine Minister even to turn?”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, you're right, nobody ever did. I don't think anyone even dreamt it, not to mind say it. So, you know, you can't blame Brexit on everything, but it's certainly destabilized things for the last six, seven years. There's no doubt about that.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Institutions are down, and I fear, I hate saying this, but I fear that the European Union will say we'll come back after the next election in the UK and maybe the next election in Ireland. So we're gone for a period. That's why I'm optimistic because I just don't want that to happen. But at the same time, we desperately need the institutions up. I mean, Northern Ireland has a whole lot of difficulties, a whole lot of problems, and it desperately needs to have people running the play by day, even if it's not perfect.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And whether you're optimistic, I guess. Yeah, I am optimistic, but if you ask me, am I very optimistic? But I do think this is doable. And we have a short window of opportunity. Now, don't ask me what that short means, but it's not months, that's sure. I think we probably have a few weeks, but no more than that. And again, you're faced with...”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“been able to go back and forward between Dublin and London, I don't know how many, I think, definitely will hold a world record of prime ministers that were in number 10. Nobody could get near me. But I mean, I think I was there about 50 or 60 times, so I did not a bad time.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It wouldn't have happened if this was left to the process and to the system and even all our good people that we had with us and they were all great people that we had with us, it wouldn't have happened. I mean, at the end of the day, that we worked together normally in that kind of negotiations. Tony and I should have been adversarial. We should have been fighting our causes and lines. And that's what always went, goes on all over the world. And I've been involved in a few processes since and different places. And you see why they don't work very quickly. No, we were lucky that we got Arm well together. And, you know, can I quickly add that that relationship wasn't just 98. I mean, Tony and I had to live with this till 207 till we really got the institutions up and running. And it was that permanent meeting, meeting a European meetings, several European meetings, informal ones, formal.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“to everybody didn't agree with any of them, I think, but he had the ability to just handle that and he was an extraordinarily, extraordinary good guy. And he articulates, I think, the whole thing so well. And he had the support of the president of the free world. And that was, I mean, that ultimately gave him that command and position. Like he couldn't turn around and not see his sincerity and at the same time understand that if you want to keep the president of the United States with us, which we did, thankfully. And, you know, as you recall, we used him extensively in those last few days.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, Clinton was very upset when George Mitchell decided to leave Capitol Hill. And George had a young wife and a young child and he wanted to get on and make some money, I think, too, after being in politics all his life. So he's joined up a lot of boards. But he did say to Bill, if you ever need me for something, give me a call. Hoping he never would. So I think Bill said, well, listen, we need to go over and help those Irish for a few months. And a few years later, the poor man, if it wasn't home. Yeah, I think he went across the Atlantic a hundred times the remaining number of years. But he was terrific. He took dogs' abuse at the start. I think you'd learn so much from him. You know where you get people in life, they say, oh, you have to be tough and you have to be aggressive and you don't get anywhere if you don't go in and do this, that and the other. He was the opposite. He had the patience of Jove. He listened.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, everyone was worried about it. I mean, there's no good saying it wasn't, but it was one of those risks that we're talking, you know, Moe was as tough as letter, but she took the risk. But if you take together, and I think the reason, if you look at that group, we were all used of listening to the troubles, you know, the thousands of people who had died, tens of thousands of people who were injured, the huge amount of bombs, it was horrific what was going on. And I think we all kind of said, well, then you have to stretch yourself to try and find a solution. Nowadays, people, you know, there's been an odd incident here and there, terrible incidents. We all condemn those and everyone agrees now to condemn those. But in those days, something wasn't so easy. And I think it was the fact that that group of people that you've mentioned, those that are dead and those that are alive, were all prepared to knuckle down together.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, the sad thing about that is that probably that Ian, maybe if he had been a bit better health and a bit younger, had been around for a bit longer. He had great people like Peter Robinson behind. I mean, he continued on that relationship. We were lucky enough on that. But, you know, losing Martin was a huge loss from Martin's health. That went down rapidly in only a matter of three or four months. So Davy Irvine as well, Brain Hemate. Seamus Mann. They were.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Adams McGuinness jury was hardball Martin, you always knew where you were. If Martin said something you tended to say, well, that's what he meant. That's what will happen. But ultimately brave, and Martin probably was on the hit list of...”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“David Trimble was difficult and he was a difficult person, a complex person, but ultimately deserved as Nobel Peace Prize because it leased three times in the process when we needed somebody to stand up. He did it against horrendous odds in his own party, not the mind in the wider public. John Hume unbelievable, same message from nineteen sixty eight three strand approach, solve the problems in the north, north, south, east, west, failure, sweat, not your blood, never changed.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ten parties representing unionist loyalists, Republicans and Nationalists which had never been done before and probably and it's not for me to say but by and large considered by UN people and others around the world probably one of the few that has worked and that was a tall order.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think we had the political capital in the bank and both of us were prepared to put in the time and the effort. And on the basis that it mightn't work because when both of us were being told, I wonder is this thing impossible. Remember, the last agreement had been 1921 and that didn't go very well. So there was no precedent of success. There have been plenty of precedents of failure. And I always say I don't take anything from the people who tried in 1974 with Sunningdale or they tried very hard 95, but they failed. Tony and I were trying to do was to have a comprehensive, inclusive process with two governments.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, listen, we put so much into it for a good few years before it, and particularly that last 10 months. And I think the way I looked at it, Alistair, was that if we didn't complete that and the amount of effort that Tony Blair put in, I was conscious. Ireland is a very important country to us, but we're not a huge country. And I knew you could not get a British Prime Minister to continue on to be at this every day and meeting all kind of strange people and bringing them into your number 10. And it couldn't go on. It couldn't go on. So I was conscious that if this didn't work, it was probably gone for a decade. and maybe more. And seeing what I've seen now, I think it would win God for more. I don't think we would have got it.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“had done, and all the issues we had done and he would just remind people we're doing release of thousands of prisoners, how we're going to handle arms, huge amount of arms, including the IRA's Libyan arms, how we were going to reform the RUC into a new police force, how we were going to be in legislation, demilitarized the North, the watchtowers and all the security. So all of a sudden in three weeks we said, when we've done a lot of talking about these issues, now can we kick them together? At answer to your question, then I think we could do all that in the last few weeks. No, I didn't. I didn't think we could knock it together.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As you recall how Sir Tony and I had been working a distance our opposition days and we said we'd give it one big push but I think we start to really the negotiations September 97 but as we drifted into 98 you know it wasn't looking good We would have the meetings in London in January and there were people killed in the north and we had to put one party out to UDP and then there were more people killed and we had to put Sinn F ⁇ in out because the IRA were seen to have responsibility for that. And then we came up to March, we're going to America and that was a tricky enough period of Bill Clinton has been very helpful and encouraging us to go with it. And then the chief coordinator of it all, George Mitchell, said, listen, an ongoing give this three more weeks. So 17th of March or around 17th of March, he told all the parties, you know, another three weeks, and I'm out of here. So all of a sudden, all the talking.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Seamus Mullen, David Trimble, Trimble. It's a growing number. And then some of the earlier people, Albert Reynolds, is gone. So I decided what we should try and do while the rest of us were alive to interview them, long interviews, which were putting out the long interview as well, mainly for history, for historians. It's now on the curriculum for the leaving search, which is the 18-year-olds here and 18, 19-year-olds.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think, you know, there's no, you were there and I was there, but unfortunately a lot of the people that you and I got on well with and didn't get on well with over the period. Unfortunately, we're becoming a bit of a dying breed, I'm afraid Alistair, we've lost a lot. Mo Molo.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, I never brought that into it at all, and it just immediately, and not only the media, I suppose in public opinion, said, oh, this is a big grand plan. Now, I said that issue doesn't arise. It might arise in a few years' time, and then I'll have to answer the question with any interest or not. I don't rule it out, but neither I ruled this out, that I haven't done any thinking about it, whatever. I haven't talked to my kids about it. I haven't talked to my best friends about it. We haven't had a meeting of a lot of my old campaign team are dead, so I can't have a meeting with them, and I've had literally no discussion.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've rejoined the local area back where you rejoined. Well, I think probably it was becoming impossible. It was just so divisive within the leadership of the party. Every time they did a press conference, they were asked why I just resigned. Some people said I might have been thrown out if I didn't. Not too sure that would have happened. If I think if I had gone and defended myself, God knows what would have happened. I didn't do bother doing that. I said there's no point in putting more hassle on myself. And the reason I continued all the 10 years I was out, I continued to help the party locally, work with the party. We did all the commemorations for 1916 in the parties I was involved in. So there's no big deal and we rejoined in my old buddies and I've met them every month for the last 10 years.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What happened was I had too many bank accounts maybe. I had several bank accounts, but they were all joint accounts in my wife's name, my name. And I wasn't using them because obviously I was going through a separation. That's where the problem went. We had several bank accounts.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Money for planning applications and zone that the councillors of the land you're on? Yeah, the councillors were rezoning land and of course land went from agriculture prices to stuff. Now they didn't find one IOFA to do me in all of that and neither could they because they never got a penny from these two central figures. But of course like a lot of these tribunals, they're set up for one thing and then they go off on another tangent. And then they even though I had forensic accountants put all this stuff together and everything but they still just kept after me. And of course I became probably the t-shirt or prime minister. So I became probably the media. This was a good media game. So the media tended to go on their side.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To go back to nineteen eighty four in every account that I had, which included a period where I had gone through a separation and chase everything for, and then I became nearly the central figure. Has they made millions investigating me? But anyway, it was a nine.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When they were going for it, I was because the man tribunal was about corruption and planning. And it was, there had been quite an element of corruption planning. Maybe it wasn't huge, but it was happening, mainly to do with land zoning in the councils. So the manned tribunal I set up amazingly and gave them a lot of powers and left them off to do their job. They then later on they did get some successes, I have to give them some credit, about some of the planning issues. But then two developers who I had little or nothing to do with came into the equation. And then they came after me, which was fair enough, I suppose, to see if I got any money from these guys. They then proceeded to make me, you know, by judicial orders.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, Donald was some of the battles. We tried to make some of the changes. I was trying to deal with the abortion issue. And we were trying to get peace between the Christian churches and the politicians. And we'd almost got so. But Dana took up, who I got on with very well, but she took up an extreme position that abortion couldn't happen at all in any circumstances. And that defeated the referendum. So Tandem was left to another generation to do with.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He asked me what did I think of Karmalek. Of course he was winding me up and I said a murder bass and I remember the civil service near y'all got under the table. But he also said in his memoir that I then refused to stay in the room. That wasn't true. That wasn't true.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The Bundesbank didn't help? The Bundesbank did nothing to help us in those days. I mean, we were pushed out. We ultimately.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the problems that that cause or those currency problems, we were far weaker country at that stage. We were on the narrow band of DRM. We were trying to tie in with a tie ourselves to the German market, our export market and overnight bank rates after that collapse in here 100%. And it really, really caused us endless, endless problems. We didn't have big resources to fight.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What is going on there? It's a bit of a cross and rage. But I remember Lamont and the collapse of the Holy RM and the exchange rate mechanism back in 1992 and 1993.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On this background, yeah. What I learned from me, he was extraordinarily driven and he was efficient and he'd meet everybody, meet every group. Now he could be quite abrupt, you know. You could go into a meeting with him and he'd barely say hello. I'd be the opposite. Maybe too short or a phone call, he'd ring when I was chief whip, you get a phone call. He said, organize that social, you know, he wouldn't say good morning, good evening, good night. What happened to the football game yesterday? So it would be very much a style. I wouldn't have. But he was very efficient. He went in with every meeting knowing what was the objective, what was I doing here? Was this all a load of nonsense? So you learned that efficiency of using your day, getting out there, meeting people. So he was very good from that point of view.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think he was very, Charlie was very bright, extraordinarily bright. His parents hadn't got a lot of money. I think his father had been ill all his life, but he got first place in his chartered accountancy. He got through all his educational system on scholarships. And he was looked down on because of that. Now, afterwards, he got into all kinds of troubles because he ended up in a huge house and things. But I think a lot of it came from that.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was me. I was very much, I mean, I was brought up in an area where after training you went to the bar, you know, and so all the guys, and all the people, most of the people who canvassed with me worked with me from a very young age were people I knew, through sporting organizations who would have had the same politics and many of them wouldn't have had, but joined up to the crew. So that was very much our life. I could never understand. I mean, I was a bit of a security nightmare for my security guys because, you know, they say we never go to the same place, you should go to different places and you shouldn't do this. And I did the opposite. And that's the way it was. I couldn't have functioned. I mean, my view of hanging around Parliament bars and painting the neck, same old stuff, same old story. So I'd go back to my locals and my local area, go into places that were considered.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I came upon the taste that when I ran for so many people from sport knew me and I got elected, I don't think it was because the banner that I had on my name, I had been involved in so many sporting organizations in my area. I think they all knew me”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, not really. I mean, my intention, my interest in it growing up, it was sport. I had to go with every sport, probably master and none that was a problem, but I would have had everything my sister has played tennis. I played tennis. My father loved Hanball and Harlan. And my father came from Hurling End of Cork. It was all hurling. He thought the best game in the world was hurling. He's probably right in that. My mother was football, gayly football. I grew up in an area where soccer was very strong. League of Ireland, we had our own League of Ireland team, drunk Canbra, unfortunately gone now. I played a lot of school by football. I was probably a far better soccer player than I was Gaily Pair, but I played both up until I was 35. My older brother was involved in neglectics in running and all his life still involved in the national stadium, Morton Stadium. So I've used to do a lot of cross-country running.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it came from negotiations that I was involved in because I was involved all the time in political party negotiations internally and with other parties, formation of governments. And from very earliest age, Charlie Hai, Albert Reynolds had me involved in fairly senior negotiations. I never did it purposely, but I think just your sense of things, I wouldn't show my hand until I had to show my hand. Even some of the guys negotiate with me wouldn't be quite sure which way they were being led. So I think that's where you get the reputation from that.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think most of my negotiations early on was with trade unions and employers, with Ibeck and Congress of Trade Unions and others. So that's where I learned to trade.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is that a fair assessment? We really appreciated him saying that. Of course, that quote came from a certain circumstances of negotiations that I was involved in with another political party where it looked as if it was impossible to get an agreement, we got an agreement.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He was a hero for us, you know, growing up. I mean, he was my local TD for a while and then constituency boundaries. We have this awful thing of constituency boundaries change you. And, you know, Hahy was kind of a hero. I remember I probably met him first and I was about 10. After an election, we had a children's party. And in those days, we didn't have many parties. We didn't have parties for your birthday or maybe Christmas, but there was very little money around those days. But he came down to the party and had given a whole lot of sweets for the party. So we were all kids, but we'd been out doing leaflets.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no, no, there were quite. I think they were quite happy that Iran, once I was running for Fina Fall, if I had ran for Fina Gale, I probably wouldn't have been thrown out.”
2023-03-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 8: Bertie Ahern: The Troubles, peace, and the future of Ireland · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source