TV interviewReporters covering the general election attacked Fianna Fáil to protect their jobs, salaries and expenses, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern claimed at the weekend.
Speaking late on Friday night on RTÉ, Mr Ahern said: "I understand, listen, that if you are on good money and you are told what you have to say and write, then you have to do it [ and] then that is what happens. You don't want to lose your job and I wouldn't expect any right-thinking journalist with a very good salary and expenses to throw that away," he said.
Mr Ahern said he would serve another five years as Taoiseach. "What I have said before is that if this is a five-year term it should run to the summer of 2012.
"I'll be still at 60 at that stage. If you want an answer tonight, I said I wouldn't run for the fourth term, but that I would serve my term. So if you ask me tonight whether the election is May or June of 2012, that's when I'll serve to," he said.
In an apparent reference to reporting of his TV debate with Enda Kenny, Mr Ahern said: "I don't get annoyed about that. But when something is 85/15 and people say that you definitely lost that. Jeepers," he declared.
Delighted by the party's performance, Mr Ahern said: "It is a great night for Fianna Fáil. It is a great night for the party. It is a great night for the party machine.
"We have been fairly well written out of it. I have dealt with it for weeks on end - meltdown, 68 seats, nosedives, 20 seats gone, obliterated. All of that," he went on.
He said Fianna Fáil had been told that "it was going to lose 20 seats, and all of the other things. I don't want to go through all of that. That's in the past. Campaigns are campaigns," he said, during a 20-minute interview on RTÉ's Election 2007 programme.
He said Fianna Fáil had its ups and downs in the early part of the campaign but it was never like some media commentary maintained. "It was never like that. Anybody out there on the hustings would never have seen that FF was going to dip, that they were going to lose an enormous number of seats," he said.
Fianna Fáil's 41 per cent share of support was an "exceptional vote" given that it has been in government for 10 years and had sustained "huge media criticism".
"There are very few parties anywhere in Europe that would have achieved what Fianna Fáil did today. For that I am hugely proud of Fianna Fáil and our organisation," he said. Asked whether the Mahon tribunal's inquiries about his personal finances posed further complications, he said: "No. I don't think that at all. I'll deal with that, whenever. I'll deal with that in the morning if they were ready for it."
Returning to the media's coverage, Mr Ahern said: "I worked off four hours of sleep for the campaign for five weeks. One day I got five. I am a fit guy and very tough, but that does wear on the body. And some genius of a journalist in the Irish Independent said that I looked cranky and dishevelled. I had just got a shower and put on my very best suit and smiled for 10 minutes for the cameramen, looked back, forward, upside down and was as nice as I possibly could be. If you read it you would think that I was somebody that had gone through a wringer, so it is very hard. When you are out fighting a tough campaign it is very tough."
Eamon de Valera had given two interviews a year during his time as taoiseach: "One for the paper that he was for, and one for that paper that he was against. It is slightly different now. There seems to be more journalists now in this country than there seems to be in Europe," he said.
Asked if his dealings with the media had "left a lasting mark", Mr Ahern replied: "I worry a little bit about the future, to be honest. Not for me, not for Bertie Ahern. God, we are getting intrusive. I am not talking for myself, but [ rather] the level of questions and scrutiny that you are expected to do.
"We are really getting to a stage where it is very hard for people coming up in the future. I really think people should reflect on that. I heard John Gormley making the point that there was an opinion poll on the day of the election. We tried to change that and all hell broke loose.
"But I think there could be a few rules of the game for everybody. It isn't really about blood sport. It isn't really about trying to denigrate people. It is about the future of the country, about how it is run and how it is managed. It is not necessary to kick the lights out of people who are trying to do a good job.".
