‘Bring Bertie back for his NI expertise’ say FF grassroots
THERE is growing clamour within Fianna Fáil for three-time Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to be given a new role to drive the party’s policy on the North, the Irish Mail on Sunday has learned.
The move to bring one of the chief architects of the Good Friday Agreement back into the party fold is backed by TDs who have become frustrated with leader Micheál Martin’s policy on Northern Ireland.
Several party figures – including MEP Billy Kelleher and veteran backbencher Michael Moynihan – have publicly expressed frustration over their leader’s positioning on the North.
Mr Martin’s policy on the North has centred around the ‘shared island’ initiative, which aims to deliver projects to bring people closer together.
One senior party source in favour of bringing Mr Ahern back into the party fold told the MoS: ‘It makes huge sense to bring Bertie back. He is the architect of the Good Friday Agreement.
‘What has the other fellow done? Some Shared Island Unit in some bureaucratic backwater. No one’s ever heard of it.’
Another source noted: ‘Bertie has huge credibility, even in Unionist circles. He is seen as an honest broker. In Northern circles he is our Mandela.
‘They do not know who Micheál is.
He is a makeweight. He’s too cautious.’
Some in the party believe Mr Ahern could play a similar role to George Mitchell, the former US senator who skilfully chaired the talks that delivered the Good Friday Agreement, to help bring about the return of the North’s institutions.
A source said: ‘Bertie is a wise old head, a statesman, a consigliere in unwanted retirement.’
However, any return by Mr Ahern would be acutely politically embarrassing for Mr Martin. He was about to drum his former leader out of the party following the publication of the Mahon Tribunal report into payments made to politicians, including Mr Ahern, before he left of his own accord.
Northern policy has been zealously guarded by a succession of Fianna Fáil leaders since the fallout over the Arms Trial scandal in the 1970s.
But one party source said: ‘Relations within the North are at an all-time low. Fine Gael are suddenly more Republican than us. How did that happen?’
Mr Martin’s Northern policy has been further compromised by the decision of the SDLP to break off its union with Fianna Fáil.
The marriage of the parties, announced in January 2019, was originally backed by 70% of the party’s delegates.
But since then the SDLP has dropped from 12 to eight MLAs, while its vote has plummeted from 12% to 9%.
One source noted of the machinations: ‘It is all part of the great game of death by a thousand cuts.’
Mr Martin has also been publicly challenged by senior figures in his party over his Northern policy.
The Fianna Fáil leader was understood to be less than happy with the decision of putative leadership contender Jim O’Callaghan to speak at last week’s Ireland’s Future conference, which was held on the same day Mr Martin gave his keynote address to his party’s Ard Fheis.
MEP Billy Kelleher has also publicly called for a more proactive policy than the Shared Island Unit.
While Cork North West TD Michael Moynihan previously told the MoS: ‘I believe Fianna Fáil stood, in the past, very much for a united Ireland, a Republican ethos. Bertie Ahern,
Charlie Haughey, Albert Reynolds all embraced it right to the bringing around of the Good Friday Agreement.
‘We have to have a very clear message. Our number one political aim is to reunify the island.
‘We have to be clear and unambiguous that this is our aim.’