That has always been Ahern's key strength - his ability to portray himself as an ordinary man without any social or intellectual pretensions.  The image of him drinking his pint of Bass down at his local, anorak by his side, approachable by all, his marital life and personal finances in chaos - has always been one that many people can relate to and identify with - even if it is somewhat disconcerting in a Finance and Prime Minister.

In more recent times he has been seen as overplaying this hand and lost his usual keen sense of public relations.  His reference to his not having a state palace to live in (a la Sarkozy) in justication of his salary increase is perhaps the best example of this. To have accepted a €38K pay increase - greater than the average total wage - at the same time as calling for pay restraint from everyone else - and a budget which gave social welfare recipients less than one hundredth of this - was perhaps the last straw.

It all seems pretty petty stuff - and many have pointed out that CEOs of relatively small/unsuccessful companies receive more -  but it is precisely because he has built his career around this "ordinary Joe" persona that he is now paying the price in public disillusion.  

The cash "dig-outs" his "friends" gave him may have been little more than the ego gratification of those who like to think they are part of the inner circle, but the culture of close "cohabitation" between the building industry and Fianna Fail has had consequences for all to see - poor planning, poor building standards, poor infrastructural development, traffic gridlock and one of the largest carbon footprints in the world.

Ahern has many achievements to his credit, but his legacy is largely one of closing the book on the classic problems of the Irish State - Northern Ireland, unemployment, emigration, public debt and a moribund economy.  The new problems of population growth and aging, health care, climate change, peak oil, sustainable development will be for a new generation of leaders to resolve.  At least he had the foresight to include the Greens in government, when strictly speaking, he didn't have to.

For all his faults, his successors may look like pygmies in comparison

Index of Frank's Diaries

Colman:

I'm not even 100% sure that what's left of the treaty is worth passing - we'll have to work through the consolidated version at some stage. One is available here.

I'm beginning to lean towards the opinion that it makes more sense to read the reform treaty itself than a consolidated version if one wants to decide whether the reform is worth it.

We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo