Bertie Ahern Quotations

Patrick Bartholemew Ahern (Irish: Pádraig Parthalán Ó hEachtairn) (born September 12, 1951), commonly called Bertie Ahern, served as the tenth Taoiseach of Ireland between 1997 and 6 May 2008.

'This is a day we should treasure - a day when agreement and accommodation have replaced days of difference and division.' (April 11, 1998 - the day the Good Friday Agreement was signed)
'I'm one of the last socialists left in Irish politics.' (December, 2004)
"It's all smokes and daggers"( commenting on the media's apparent conspiracy to discredit him)
'The reason it's on the rise is because probably the boom times are getting even more boomer.' (commenting on rising inflation in the Irish economy)
'I've looked up every tree in north Dublin.' (speaking of his investigations into Ray Burke's past)
'We are not going to apologise for any small role we may have played in helping to remove a dictator who made his people suffer for 20 years, carried out horrific acts and didn't care about democracy. He is gone now, and thank God for that.' (May 2003 - speaking of the war in Iraq and the use of Shannon Airport for US military stopovers)
'We were always dead against the war.' (December 2003)
'To the people of Europe who are joining us today in the European Union I extend the hand of friendship...Today marks the triumph of your determination and perseverance over the legacy of history. For Europe, today marks the closure of one chapter and the opening of another new and exciting chapter in its long history.' (1 May, 2004 - European Union enlargement)
'What they were up to in those days were kept for the future. I'm not sure I know how legal it was...but anyway...ha ha ha.' (15 March 2005 - Visiting the Tipperary Hill Irish neighbourhood in Syracuse, New York)
'Throwing white elephants and red herrings at each other.' (a warning he used in the Dáil once).
Time reported him as warning his country against "upsetting the apple tart" of his country's economic success.
'I never condemn wrongdoing in any area.' (22 February, 2006 in the Dáil)
'I never condone wrongdoing in any area' (22 February, 2006 in the Dáil) (Ahern corrected his slip, above, during the same dialogue.http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DZoom.aspx?F=DAL20060222.xml&pid=Bertie)
Speaking on Ray Burke (who was subsequently jailed for six months for tax evasion) after Burke's resignation;
I always found him to be a proud honourable man, loyal and true, persevering and principled, caring and committed but tough and a person who often lost friends very easily. On behalf of the Government and particularly on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party, I thank him for his distinguished years in the service of his constituents and his country.
'The public are entitled to have an absolute guarantee of the financial probity and integrity of their elected representatives, their officials and above all of Ministers. They need to know that they are under financial obligations to nobody.' (Dáil Éireann transcript, December 1996)
'It is quite unacceptable that a member of Dáil Éireann and in particular a Cabinet Minister and Taoiseach, should be supported in his personal lifestyle by gifts made to him personally.' (Dáil Éireann transcript, September 1997)
'I'm not answering what I got for my Holy Communion money, my Confirmation money, what I got for my birthday, what I got for anything else, I'm not into that.' (21 September, 2006 responding to questions relating to a leak from Mahon Tribunal that they would investigate payments he received in 1993.)
At the Mahon Tribunal on 20 September 2007, Ahern said;
I continued the arrangement, so whatever was on my mind, and the reason I probably can't give you a better reflection of what I was doing on the 19th of January is because I didn't do it. I am sure there are some mornings you get up and you think I might do this or I might do that and then you don't do them so, its hard to remember.
"Some people dye their hair yellow or put rings in their noses" - explaining why he didn't have a bank account in 1993, to the Mahon Tribunal December 20 2007.
'It was a political donation for my personal use.' 21 February 2008 at the Mahon Tribunal, referring to a £5000 donation.http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/0221/breaking45.htm
Ahern has had his speaking style described as "Bertispeak
"It is not correct, and if I said so, I was not correct -- I cannot recall if I said it, but I did not say, or if I did, I did not mean to say it -- "
I've never heard of any man standing in a wheelchair that didn't get a seat.

On Brian Crowley, News of The World Bertie Farewell Special

Speaking on the collapse of Lehmans Bank as reported in The Irish Times

“That decision will in history be written as the biggest mistake that American administration ever made, because Lehmans was a world investment bank. They had testicles [sic] everywhere.”