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Bertie Ahern doing one of his favourite things Donall Farmer/INPHO

Why is Bertie really really very worried?

The former taoiseach isn’t confident about Sunday.

YOU MIGHT HAVE a lot of questions for Bertie Ahern.

For example, the former Taoiseach has yet to give an in-depth interview about matters arising out of the damning Mahon report three years ago.

But they’ll have to wait because on Newstalk this morning, Pat Kenny was principally interested in talking to the controversial former Fianna Fáil leader about the current political impasse in the North.

Then, of course, they chatted about the Dubs’ chances against Kerry in Sunday’s All Ireland Senior Football Final.

After a lengthy Q&A on the Northern situation (which we won’t bore you with), Kenny asked GAA-mad Bertie about his hopes for Sunday.

Unfortunately the Bert isn’t too confident.

I suppose around these parts at the moment, Pat, all the suspicions start. All the people telling me all week that Kerry have never lost three championship matches to Dublin in a row, Kerry always won when there was a five in the final. (We think he means a five in the year of the final)

But it’s not just the omens, Ahern thinks Eamon Fitzmaurice’s Kerry are an excellent side with an “unbelievable panel” that has strength in numbers on the bench.

He listed off the likes of Aidan O’Mahony, Brian Sheehan – “one of the best dead ball kickers in the game” – and Paul Geaney

“They have a huge team,” said Ahern before admitting he was worried.

Really worried. 

“I would be fearful of Kerry. I think they have really a strong side. They’re the All Ireland champions. I hope I am wrong, but I have to say I fear them.

I think anyone who believes Dublin are on a handy road… I will go very worried on Sunday and be happy at the end but I am not very confident I have to say.

Other matters 

Ahern was also asked about Fianna Fáil’s decision to issue a gender directive in his old constituency of Dublin Central which means members can only pick a female candidate for the general election.

The former taoiseach wasn’t happy about it, describing the whole idea as “zany” while noting he had served in cabinet with some “very formidable ladies”.

Imagine it was the other way around. If it was only a male person being allowed through. I bet your programme this morning would be exclusively on that issue.

“Some genius thought it up,” Ahern said sarcastically before dismissing the whole thing as “mad”.

Finally, on that current political crisis in Northern Ireland, Ahern said he hoped the parties would “get together and solve this”. He there should be bilateral talks prior to any roundtable meetings.

He also added that one of the problems with the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement is that there is “no real democratic opposition in Northern Ireland”.

He said this would have to change in the coming years but not immediately.

Read: Does Bertie still hold sway in his old stomping ground?

Read: Bertie Ahern says he received a rope and noose in the post after leaving office

Read: 13 great Bertieisms at the banking inquiry

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65 Comments
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    Mute Censored
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    Jan 16th 2015, 8:17 AM

    Hopefully France’s justice system is not like our own, or else these people will be back on the streets in time for evening prayers to their spaghetti monster.

    153
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    Mute redmarauder
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    Jan 16th 2015, 8:25 AM

    No worry they will just come up with a new one, they always do because
    French legislators react to each terrorist wave with the enactment of new laws.

    Four major counter-terror laws are the ones of 1986 (Law no. 86-1020 of 9 September), of 1996 (Law no. 96-647 of 22 July), of 2001 (Law no. 2001-1062 of 15 November), and of 2006 (Law no. 2006-64 of 23 January).

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    Mute J. Dunn
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    Jan 16th 2015, 8:29 AM

    ‘Spaghetti monster…’ The mono-atheists are slowly building an irony-clad narrative.

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    Mute Censored
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    Jan 16th 2015, 8:38 AM

    I’m actually agnostic. Atheism is just as illogical as theism.

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    Mute George Eliot
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    Jan 16th 2015, 9:14 AM

    I presume you feel the same about people who don’t believe in unicorns?

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    Mute Cyril Butler
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    Jan 16th 2015, 11:45 AM

    Im both Atheist and agnostic to both god and David Ikes theory of reptiles. The laws of physics show no intervening beings and the laws of probability states less complex things such as a universe are more likely to exist than more complex things such as universe creators. I cant prove that god or fish eating flying aliens dont exist but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

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    Mute J. Dunn
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    Jan 16th 2015, 6:59 PM

    Do people who don’t believe in unicorns drone on about a superquinn sausage creature that lives in a field?

    Mono-atheists all cling to the same superfluous outline brought down from the coffee house on Samsung tablets.

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    Mute Uncle Mort
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    Jan 16th 2015, 10:43 AM

    No wonder the JOurnal and other media did not show the Charlie Hedbo front page as this headline from elsewhere warns.
    ‘My husband is being lashed to death… they are killing him more every week’: Agony of wife of Saudi Arabian blogger who is being flogged 50 times every Friday for ‘insulting Islam’

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    Mute Dave Davis
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    Jan 16th 2015, 1:20 PM

    The journal did. Have a look. It’s still there.

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    Mute CitizenSmith©
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    Jan 16th 2015, 8:36 AM

    These people are going to feel pretty stupid when Elvis comes back to Earth and has a tussle with Thor in an MMA fixture in Croke Park.

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    Mute Luther Cooper
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    Jan 16th 2015, 8:52 AM

    Anyone hear from Frank??

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    Mute AN other
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    Jan 16th 2015, 9:36 AM

    That will be subject to license!

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    Mute CitizenSmith©
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    Jan 16th 2015, 9:41 AM

    Elvis doesn’t need the approval of your puny human laws, he is the law

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    Mute Atticus the Accuser
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    Jan 16th 2015, 10:37 AM

    Frank’s getting probed by the lizard people and having his implanted chip updated! Normal numerology nonsense will continue shortly.

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    Mute Simon Barnes
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    Jan 16th 2015, 3:15 PM

    do you not know what day it is today.. 16/01/2015 16-1 = 15 there is a 15 in 2015 coincidence or what.

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    Mute Declan Noonan
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    Jan 17th 2015, 1:45 AM

    Frank and glen are having a Friday conspiracy movie night. Horgay is running the projector.

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    Mute Uncle Mort
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    Jan 16th 2015, 10:15 AM

    September 2012, Barack Obama at the United Nations “The future does not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”
    Showing the true colours pf the man who watched football instead of marching with the other major leaders . I wonder what our Islamofascist apparatchiks will have to comment about this signal to the various groups that he is so fond of?

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    Mute redmarauder
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    Jan 16th 2015, 12:29 PM

    Nonsens, for example the Obama administration markedly stepped up the use of drones. Since Obama’s inauguration in 2009, the CIA has launched 330 strikes on Pakistan , his predecessor, President George Bush, conducted 51 strikes in four years. And in Yemen, Obama opened a new front in the secret drone war.

    Across Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, the Obama administration has launched more than 390 drone strikes in t five years , eight times as many as were launched in the entire Bush presidency. These strikes have killed more than 2,400 people, at least 273 of them reportedly civilians.

    Under Obama’s presidency dronestrikes killed six times as many people as were under Bush.

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    Mute Anthony Lang
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    Jan 16th 2015, 10:05 PM

    It is to be hoped that France will start to recover in the way that Norway recovered and was able to regain its balance and stability after its terrorist atrocity.

    The Paris attacks were atrocities, anyone complicit needs to be made accountable, but France needs to move on and avoid making hate figures of Muslims, with French Muslims accepting, as the vast majority do, that they live in a civic and secular republic.

    Polarisation of opinion and division between Muslims and nonMuslims will only serve the terrorist agenda.

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    Mute E
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    Jan 16th 2015, 9:58 AM

    How do you say CIA in French?

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    Mute Vaibhav Borse
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    Jan 16th 2015, 3:42 PM

    There is a saying that goes by–”He who burnt himself with hot soup blows also in the cold milk too .” Guess where it applies?

    5
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