Hundreds turn out for Brian Cowen book launch in Tullamore

Hundreds of people gathered in Tullamore on Friday night for the launch of a new biography of former Taoiseach Brian Cowen, where he delivered a wide-ranging and strongly personal reflection on his years in public life.

Around 700 people attended the event at the Tullamore Court Hotel on Friday, September 25, for the launch of Professor Gary Murphy’s Brian Cowen: Anatomy of a Taoiseach.

Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was among those present, alongside former Ministers and TDs who had served with Cowen, current and former public representatives, councillors, party members, friends and supporters.

Cowen’s 22-minute address moved between humour, personal memories and a detailed defence of some of the most controversial decisions made during his time as Taoiseach. The financial crisis featured prominently.

Returning to the night of September 29, 2008, when the Government decided to guarantee the liabilities of the Irish banks, Cowen told the audience: “Doing nothing was not an option.”

He firmly rejected the suggestion that the decision was taken to protect bankers. “No one in Fianna Fáil was beholden to any banker,” he said.

Cowen argued that the Government had to consider what the failure of the banking system would mean beyond the banks themselves.

Businesses needed access to credit, employers needed to be able to pay wages, and people needed continued access to their money.

“You can’t have a modern economy without a banking system,” he said.

He also recalled the international turmoil surrounding the decision and how, on the same night, news reached Government Buildings that the US House of Representatives had rejected a proposed $700 billion financial rescue package.

Cowen used the episode to illustrate the scale and speed of the crisis confronting governments around the world. For him, the responsibility of those in government was to act.

“If you have to make decisions, you have to make them and stand up and stand over them,” he said.

He maintained that the guarantee stopped the outflow of deposits from the Irish banking system and provided time for further measures to be put in place.

Cowen went on to address the nationalisation of Anglo Irish Bank and the establishment of the National Asset Management Agency.

He recalled the predictions that it would leave taxpayers facing enormous losses and contrasted those warnings with the agency’s eventual outcome.

NAMA ultimately transferred €5.6 billion in cash and other assets to the State. It funded or facilitated the delivery of 44,566 new homes over its lifetime, including 14,660 which were directly funded, while approximately 3,000 homes were delivered for social housing.

NAMA-linked sites also accounted for more than four million square feet of commercial development in Dublin’s Docklands.

“Those are the records of what we did,” Cowen said. “We should stand up and be counted.”

The former Taoiseach said one of the reasons he had agreed to cooperate with Professor Murphy was that sufficient time had passed to allow the events of his period in government to be considered “beyond the controversy of the time”.

He acknowledged that it was “very difficult for me to be objective” about events in which he had been directly involved and said Murphy’s position as an academic and historian had been important in his decision to participate.

Cowen was clear that the biography remained Murphy’s independent work.

“It’s his book,” he said. “I will stand over a lot of what’s in it too, and I don’t necessarily agree with everything. You wouldn’t expect me to.”

He described it as a “good, honest, fully informed book”.

Cowen also spoke about local historian Michael Byrne, who addressed the gathering, stressing that Byrne had read the biography and formed his own independent view of it.

Away from the financial crisis, much of Cowen’s address was devoted to his experiences of politics and the people he encountered during his career.

He spoke about the importance of people being willing to enter public life and expressed his continuing respect for those prepared to put their names before the electorate or become involved as political activists.

“Without them, we wouldn’t have the democratic country we have today,” he said.

Cowen paid tribute to the three Taoisigh under whom he had served, Charles Haughey, Albert Reynolds and Bertie Ahern.

With Ahern in the audience, Cowen recalled having observed each of them from close quarters and described them as “people of ability, patriotic people, good people”.

He also reflected on friendships that crossed party political lines.

Recalling advice given to him early in his career by a political opponent who had been a friend of his father, Cowen said he had been told.

“Don’t judge your friendship on politics alone. I thought that was very good advice,” he said.

Towards the conclusion of his address, Cowen thanked the former colleagues, councillors, activists and friends who had supported him over the years, with particular thanks for his wife Mary and daughters Sinéad and Méabh.

For more than two and a half hours over the course of the evening, Cowen signed books, posed for photographs, shook hands and spoke individually with those who had come to the launch.

Despite his visible mobility difficulties, he stood throughout his address before continuing to meet the long line of people waiting to speak with him.

The turnout, including many who travelled considerable distances, demonstrated that Cowen continues to retain significant personal support and affection both in his home county and among former colleagues, friends and supporters elsewhere in the country.

His most emphatic words of the night, however, were reserved for the suggestion that the decisions taken during the financial crisis had been designed to protect bankers or elites.

“I’ll take criticism, as I do always. No problem,” Cowen said.

He was adamant about what he believed had motivated his government during the crisis. “It was done on behalf of the people of Ireland.”

More than 15 years after leaving office, the former Taoiseach used the launch of a book examining his political life to give his own perspective on that period, acknowledge those who had travelled it with him and make clear that he continues to stand over the decisions his government made.