Word: taoiseach
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Bertie Ahern was Ireland's Prime Minister, or Taoiseach (pronounced Tea-shock) from 1997 until 2008, when he stepped down amid controversy over his testimony to the Mahon tribunal, an inquiry set up to investigate allegations of financial sweeteners paid to politicians. (Ahern denied receiving illegal payments but admitted taking cash loans from friends.) He sat down with TIME's Catherine Mayer to discuss his long and sometimes turbulent political life, his key role in the Northern Irish peace process and his new autobiography. (Read "How Did Sarah Palin Write Her Memoir so Fast...
...were Taoiseach for almost 11 years. What's been the biggest shock of life after office? You wake up every morning and you don't go down to the e-mails to the texts and phone messages left at 4 a.m. saying 'Call me as soon as you get up.' It was a rare morning where there wasn't something of some degree of importance. Sometimes it was very serious. At other times I thought they just left the messages so you wouldn't be lonely when you woke...
...publishers asked if I'd write my autobiography and I said, 'Yeah, I'd like to do that, but don't ask me when.' Then exactly a year ago I fell downstairs and smashed my ankle badly. I was a lousy patient. It was bad enough not being Taoiseach and now to be told that now I had to hang around with a cast and crutches. So I got a notebook and started working. (Read "Rogue Journalist: Joel Stein writes his memoirs Palin-style...
...That comes through. You seem to blame the media for your decision to quit as Taoiseach. Yes, they just kept after me. Even when things were getting serious with the economy, they just kept on my back. I would have [left office] this year anyway. I thought at the end public opinion would be fed up with the tribunal and fed up with me. It just goes on and on. You're asked questions like, 'Do you not remember well going into a bank on Sept. 23, 1993?' and eight hours later you're thinking 'Jesus...
...Sarkozy and other E.U. leaders are now pinning hopes of salvaging the Treaty on another referendum, perhaps in a year's time. Officially, the bruised Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Brian Cowen was treated with sympathy at the Brussels summit, and there was universal recognition that the Irish vote had to be "respected". But behind the scenes, Cowen - tellingly banished to the far end of the family photograph of E.U. leaders - was alternately cajoled and bullied to run another vote...