During the recent RTE two parter, Freefall, Bertie Ahern did reveal a home-truth: That there was no popular or political support for reigning in spending. He was, of course, correct. If he as Taoiseach, and a popular Taoiseach for the great, great majority of his term in office, had announced that he was going to dampen down the property market (which was building 88,000 dwellings when Sweden, with twice our population, was building 12,000) and started directing our surplus tax revenues into a rainy day fund, he would have been savaged. Nevertheless, he must have had a gut feeling, as we all did, that this thing could not go on forever, despite all our hopes.
Yet he did nothing. Nor, for the most part part, did any of the opposition parties or social partners. The whole country turned a blind eye to fundamentals that we all knew were just too good to be sustainable.
Yet, here’s the thing: For the money he was on, Bertie should have been willing to be unpopular, and here’s why: Continue reading