Fionnán Sheahan

There were continual mutterings about his probity and his integrity.

Was he compromised?

Was he too close to business?

Was he basically taking bungs, to be quite frank?

And it took an awfully long time.

It was gone from office before finally it emerged.

I remember being in Brussels of an evening when the first murmurings of Charlie is going to be named as in allegations of financial impropriety.

And I remember a very senior civil servant saying to me, that is complete rubbish.

They couldn't catch him up to now.

They're not going to catch him now.

But watch this space.

And obviously he's deceased now 20 years.

His legacy continues to be evaluated.

There was a lot of good.

Yes, there was a lot of good along with the other aspects.

I acknowledge that, yeah.

If someone in the modern era could kind of encapsulate Fianna Fáil in all its glory, in all its defeats, in all its contradictions, it's Bertie Ahern.

So successful, he won three elections in a row, not done by anybody else in the modern era since Dev's time.

Enormous success with the Celtic Tiger.

Now we'll get on to where that ended up.