In an interview on leadership, Mr Ahern spoke about the type of staff he valued during his time as Taoiseach.
Mr Ahern said he liked people who were loyal and hard-working and is critical of “nine-to-five pen pushers”.
“I didn’t mind if they asked me for a day off to play golf. I’d gladly give it. Or if they wanted to go on the p**s, I didn’t mind, as long as they were not people who just wanted to come in and go out. I was never into that. In all my years, those nine-to-five people were useless to me because the Dail went on to 10 o’clock at night, European meetings were on the weekend, you know. I had to try to be reasonable to these fellahs who had wives and families and who didn’t want to end up broken up like I was, so I had to be generous in other ways. In August, I would close down the whole operation,” he said in the interview.
independent.ie
