Pogue Mahon

Judge Alan Mahon has ruled that Mr Ahern should be ‘condemned to spend time with himself, deprived of attention.’

Mr Ahern, the judge said, was someone who ‘dreads the moment when solitude should deliver him to the tyranny of reflection.’

While there is no prohibition on public appearances, Mr Ahern can no longer host television programmes and will have to resign his positions with property developers Parker Green and withdraw from the World Economic Forum.

The judge was dissatisfied with the evidence presented by Mr Ahern, but rather than recommend traditional punitive measures for the former Taoiseach judge Mahon has injuncted him from ‘occupying any position that secures the esteem of the public.’

‘This is like a kiss of death for Bertie,’ said one Drumcondra Mafioso. ‘He likes nothing more than the limelight. While he is a man of the people he loves the deferential treatment that comes with respectable positions.’

The decision puts paid to Mr Ahern’s ambitions for the Aras. The former Taoiseach had hoped to spend two terms there, beginning in 2011.

Judge Mahon couched his criticisms with a reference to a Greek statesman, who, when offered the gift of memory, said he would rather have the gift of forgetting. ‘It seems from his evidence to the tribunal that some muse granted Mr Ahern the wish which was denied to Themistocles,’ he said.

The three-time Taoiseach maintained throughout the tribunal that he ‘never in public life took a bribe, backhander or anything else.’