Tom Griffin (London, The Green Ribbon): Ireland's Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said today that he will resign following a visit to Washington at the end of this month.
He admitted that the Government had been under mounting pressure over evidence about his personal finances at the Mahon Tribunal.
His announcement brought widespread recognition for the enviable track record to which he laid claim:
I am proud that as Taoiseach I have: delivered on my objective to bring the peace process to fruition; delivered on my objective to see a stable administration based on the power-sharing model take root in Northern Ireland; delivered successive social partnership agreements which underpin our social and economic progress; delivered a modern economy with sustainable growth in employment and brought an end to the days of forced emigration; delivered on my objective to improve and to secure Ireland’s position as a modern, dynamic and integral part of the European Union.
In the wake of the credit crunch, Ahern's successor will face a much tougher economic outlook. Like Iceland's current problems, this may present a challenge to Alex Salmond's notion that an independent Scotland would join an arc of prosperity among Europe's smaller nations.
The man most likely to fill Ahern's shoes is Brian Cowen, the current Tanaiste (Deputy Prime Minister) and Finance Minister. Cowen is popularly known by the acronym BIFFO, which in its semi-polite version stands for Big Ignorant Fellow From Offaly.
As Foreign Minister, he had a robust relationship with the British Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson, and was reportedly accused by a British civil servant of showing 'all the open-mindedness of a Sinn Fein member', on the issue of Britishness.
He got on better with Mandelson's successors, John Reid and Paul Murphy, and his appointment is unlikely to mark any major change in approach to British-Irish relations.
