'Boris will ruin us all': Bertie Ahern

Former taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, says he doesn't believe Northern Ireland is yet ready for a government-opposition style parliament in Northern Ireland.

“I would love to see the day that would be different,” he told the audience at a Good Friday commemoration in Athboy to mark the 20th anniversary of the peace settlement in the North.
“But I still think it has to be a power-sharing assembly model for the forseeable future,” he added.
He said that Northern Ireland is not capable, even today, of having a government-opposition situation.
“It wouldn't work. You must remember, these people would not even speak to each other 20 years ago, if they walked into an empty restaurant they would sit at opposite ends, they wouldn't sit in a studio together.”
The former Fianna Fail leader said that Arlene Foster's problem is that she “is not loved by many in her own party, by Sinn Fein, the SDLP, or on the streets.
“And that is the problem, she needs to cheer up a bit, and convince people that we can all love her, if she is lead the parties back into the assembly,” he stated.
As long as she is DUP party leader, the Irish government should try to work alongside her, and not create any problems, he added. “I know that's not easy; she's not a very easy person, and had a terrible rough time during her life, but so did many others, and came across the line.”
During a questions and answers session with RTE political correspondent Tommie Gorman in the Darnley Lodge Hotel, Bertie Ahern agreed that getting the Democratic Unionist Party to sign up to the peace process was the last chapter, the unfinished business, which occurred after the Omagh bomb.
“It was clear we had to get the DUP in – they were on the way to be the largest party, representing the highest proportion of people in Northern Ireland, and I set about building a relationship with Ian Paisley.
“He turned out to be a good guy to deal with.”
Ahern recalled that on a visit to Dublin after he had stepped down as taoiseach, they visited the Dail, the Botanic Gardens, and Glasnevin Cemetery, where the former taoiseach's parents are buried in the republican plot.
“And Ian Paisley walked down to my mother's and father's graves, and he knew they were in the republican plot, and he stood over them and said a prayer – I thought that was some twist to the guy.”
Looking back at the negotiations, he said Tony Blair was very honourable and trustworthy, and gave a huge amount of time and effort to Northern Ireland.
“He never tried to double cross me. Jonathan Powell (Downing Street Chief of Staff) did, twice, – once he apologised for and I ended up getting egg on my face in the other.”
Ahern said that the British Civil Service were everything people say about them – if they told him it was a Friday he'd have to check it.
“If I was Leo, I'd check that too – that's just as friendly helpful advice.”
The former taoiseach says that Theresa May needs to either pack it up and go walking in the hills, or go to her 350 MPS and say there's 70 of you here who want one thing – we know what you want; what do the rest of you want ...and she needs to put it up to them.
“If she has 350 members and 70 of them are rebels, something you have to say what do we do with the 280 and she has to do that. If she keeps going from crisis to crisis, and listening to that buffoon, Boris – he'll ruin us, never mind ruin them - she has to face up to that. If she doesn't she can't survive.”
Regarding Brexit, he said the idea of the playing it out from an Irish position until October is very dangerous.
“I'm not saying we can finish it all by June, but if we are to drag it out until the end, the British could come in in the last few days with their €50 billion cheque and say we we're going to this and we're going to do that, and going to do the other. And they'll say to the French and the Germans who are making the running on this, we've given the Irish a lot, now is the time for the Irish to move, and the pressure will come back on us.
“We had a deal on 15th December which people believed was cast iron. By 15th March it was a “ridiculous deal which no British prime minister could implement”. Now it's a backstop if nothing else. They have no intention of doing that. 
“We have been dragged through the December summit with little or nothing. Then there was the March summit, and what have we got and now when she couldn't get the customs partnership through, she's looking at another thing.
He said that while we still have the European Union on our side, the time to move is June. “If we wait till Halloween, it'll be a bad Halloween party.”
With statistics pointing to a nationalist majority in Northern Ireland by 2021, Ahern said that a united Ireland based on a sectarian head count would never work. “It wouldn't get you to Christmas,” he said. “A waste of space, and those who are suggesting it are being highly responsible and should stop.

“The only way it would work is when the nationalist and republican communities and a 'reasonable' share of the loyalist and unionist people want it – but with the unionists and loyalists totally opposed, it is ridiculous.
“The only united Ireland will be a negotiated one – and it won't happen in my lifetime.”
He said that Fianna Fail should start looking at how a united Ireland would work, and produce a proper study of how it could be done on a planned basis over a prolonged period.
“If the British subvention to Northern Ireland was to go in the morning, we would be back in a recession worse than the one we just came out of,” he added.
He also said that Fianna Fail should merge with the declining SDLP, before some other party does.
Ahern told the 300-strong audience that he had been at Good Friday anniversary events in Bilboa, Helsinki, South Africa, and several in Northern Ireland and Britain, but that the Athboy event, organised by Meath West Fianna Fail, was the only Fianna Fail event in Ireland to commemorate it. He was accompanied by his daughters, Cecilia and Georgina, and his son-in-law, TV presenter Nicky Byrne, as well as his brothers and sisters, to the event.
A piece of wood carving by Navan sculptor Eric Flanagan was presented to him by Deputy Shane Cassells, depicting his hand signing the peace accord, and a dove flying from the other hand, made from Ballivor bog oak, Slane Castle yew and lime from Dalgan Park.
The Meath Peace Group was represented at the event by Julitta Clancy OBE, Canon John Clarke, and Anne Nolan.