So he was for turning after all. I didn’t take long for Ahern to turn ‘I will not be making a statement’ into ‘I will in fact, ah, be making a statement’. The Indo reports this morning that he will make use of Dail time on Wednesday to make a speech which will attempt to dispel the “public disquiet” which has been ever present since the testimony of Grainne Carruth at the Tribunal.

The statement will need to square a number of issues, such as why he was dealing in sterling when he has repeatedly stressed that he didn’t, what was the purpose of the B/T account, did he have a controlling interest in it and if so did he have any other accounts during the period when he has testified as having none? There are many many other aspects too that need to be addressed but this is another damaging attempt by Ahern at handling this issue.

He has repeatedly set himself against a particular course of action, with the subsequent full public support of Ministers and loyalists before making a u-turn under pressure from emerging facts and making his supporters look complicit in whatever is going on. The same appears to have happened here as there has been a stream of Ministers from Brendan Smith through Willy O’Dea to Brian Lenihan and up to Dermot Ahern (as well as Martin Mansergh) who have repeatedly stressed the place to answer all this is the tribunal; “let it do its work”, “he will testify in May” etc. Now with this u-turn, Ahern once again makes these Ministers look like a pack of drooling loyalist spivs with little or no critical faculty and a slavish willingness to do the masters bidding.

This cannot last and most likely will not last. There is ever-decreasing scope for Ahern to give patchy and conflicting stories which do little but firefight the immediate crisis that the tribunal has throw up. Since the Dobson interview he has had to change aspects of his story, admit to differing and conflicting versions of events and introduce conceptual gymnastics to cover it over (”a political donation for personal use”). That he set himself against this precise course of action only days ago and then promptly does a u-turn is classic Bertie and it would be tolerated were he to lead a party to another electoral success. But he won’t and thus it won’t be tolerated much longer as he tugs ministers down with him.

The most relieved of the lot will probably be the Greens. Paul Gogarty appeared to let the cat out of the bag on the News at One yesterday when he suggested the only reason Gormley acted is because Harney acted and she only did so out of concern for the PD party and support for Fiona O Malley’s positioning. Thus there will have been worried heads at the prospect of Bertie following through on Noel Ahern’s rhetoric and completely disregarding their opinion on this matter, the relief at appearing to get their way will surely lead to a ‘broad welcoming’ of Bertie’s statement on Wednesday and a ‘that is that’ sentiment afterwards. I would encourage them not to be so quick to support next time, engage the critical faculties and perhaps take a leadership role on this issue.

The real worry here is that he succeeds in his case on Tuesday, gets to protect whatever is said in the Dail from the oversight of the Tribunal and proceeds to continue to tell two stories to the nation. IF there is even a perception of this happening and a coterie of Ministers lined up to look like happy clowns justifying this process, then this will only continue. Because after Tuesday’s case and Wednesday’s speech every Fianna Fail TD will be thinking the same thing - “Where is his next crisis going to come from? And when?”