FORMER taoiseach Bertie Ahern has rejoined Fianna Fáil more than ten years after he quit the party over the findings of the Mahon Tribunal.
A Fianna Fáil spokesperson confirmed to Independent.ie: “We received a membership application and it was accepted by the Party.”
It’s understood that Mr Ahern has rejoined the party organisation in Dublin Central as an ordinary member for the annual €20 a year fee.
In line with party rules he has no voting rights in the first year of his membership.
The application was processed in recent weeks.
A spokesperson for Mr Ahern said he has done a number of events in the last year with many different groups in relation to 25th anniversary and rejoined Fianna Fáil at the end of last year .
It comes as Mr Ahern is to address Fianna Fáil TD Jim O’Callaghan’s constituency organisation as part of an event marking the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.
There has been heightened speculation that he would return to the party he quit 11 years ago over the findings of the Mahon Tribunal.
Mr Ahern has also been linked with a run for the presidency in 2025 – a possibility not ruled out by Tánaiste Micheál Martin.
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Mr Martin opened the door to Mr Ahern’s return to Fianna Fáil for the first time last September, saying he had been consulting with his predecessor on Northern Ireland and Brexit issues.
The then taoiseach denied that Mr Ahern was now an adviser to him but said he had been “valuable” in terms of engagement with communities in the North.
The Fianna Fáil leader proposed expelling Mr Ahern from Fianna Fáíl in March 2012 after the Mahon Tribunal into planning matters found the former taoiseach failed to truthfully account for the source of bank account lodgements.
Mr Ahern, who resigned his membership of the party after Mr Martin proposed expelling him, has disputed the tribunal’s findings, saying has “never accepted a bribe or a corrupt payment”.
Mr Martin said at the time that his predecessor had “betrayed the trust” of the country and the party.
Mr O’Callaghan, who has made no secret of his ambition to lead Fianna Fáil, criticised the party for not being good at commemorating its own achievements in government ahead of the event on Thursday, which has been organised by party members in Dublin Bay South.
He insisted the event was not about Mr Ahern, who has been linked with a return to Fianna Fáil in recent months, but said it was important to make the party’s achievements.
“One of the things we are not good at in Fianna Fáil is commemorating our achievements, we should be celebrating significant achievements that Fianna Fáil has been responsible for or played a part in. It’s not about him [Mr Ahern],” he said. “We should be doing it much more, if we don’t commemorate things other people try to appropriate our achievements.”
He said as many as 250 people are expected to attend the event at a hotel in Ballsbridge in Dublin where Mr Ahern will be interviewed by Patricia MacBride, a columnist with the Irish News.
It is not the first time Mr Ahern has addressed Fianna Fáil meetings with the three-term taoiseach, a frequent speaker and commentator on Brexit and Northern Ireland.
For the sake of Northern Ireland, it’s time to bring Bertie in from the cold
A Bertie Ahern comfort blanket cannot cover sins of the past
Fact younger people don’t remember the Troubles should be celebrated, Bertie Ahern to tell MPs