By nobody, he was referring to Dick Spring's Labour Party. The audience loved his 'poor me' routine, presuming, like the entire nation, that with Albert Reynolds gone it was only a matter of time before the stand-off was ended and Fianna Fail and Labour would be reunited. But, with hindsight, Ahern obviously saw the danger signals at that point. Within a couple of weeks, Spring would bury the hatchet with his old coalition sparring partner John Bruton and form a Rainbow government.

They must have been difficult times for Bertie Ahern. As Minister for Finance for the previous three years, he would have known that Fianna Fail was handing over power just as the economy was cranking up. Worse still, Fianna Fail as a political force seemed to be on a rapid slide. The 1992 general election disaster had sounded the warning bells but, if anything, the party had continued on a downward spiral since then.

Had an election been held in late 1994, when the Reynolds government collapsed, it is doubtful if Fianna Fail would have come back with 60 seats. As Ireland entered a period of unprecedented prosperity and pluralism, it seemed as if Fianna Fail would get left behind.

There were doubts too about Ahern's leadership qualities. The man in an anorak image lingered and he appeared to lack the statesman-like stature that ultimately people look for in a leader. The sceptics wondered aloud if he, the sixth leader of Fianna Fail, would become the first never to make the Taoiseach's office?

Not only did he avoid that fate when he became the youngest ever Taoiseach on 26 June 1997, but by September of this year he will have overtaken both Jack Lynch and WT Cosgrave to become the second-longest serving Taoiseach in the history of the state. Come the autumn only Eamon de Valera, who unbelievably spent a combined two decades as Taoiseach, will be ahead of him in terms of longevity. He has also re-established Fianna Fail's hegemony by turning it into the natural party of coalition.

Forget for a minute the dithering, the procrastination, the obfuscation in the Dail, the blank cheques, the obsession with keeping the trade union movement onside at all times and his various ministerial reshuffle farces. His achievement in climbing to number two in the Taoiseach's league table is enormous. How fitting too that he should overtake Jack Lynch. Liam Cosgrave said Lynch was the "most popular Irish politician since Daniel O'Connell" and there is no question that Ahern has been the most popular since Lynch.

In many ways though Ahern's electoral achievement is more impressive than that of Lynch. In 1966, when Lynch took over, Fianna Fail had been in power for nine years, and for most of the previous three decades, and was clearly the dominant force in Irish politics.

In contrast, Ahern's Fianna Fail was in a mess.

And two-and-a-half years later, he had to face into a general election that seemed impossible to win. There is little doubt that the Rainbow coalition made a couple of strategic errors . . . the timing of the election being one of them . . . and should have won that election in 1997. But while the old adage says that 'oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them', Ahern's 'man of the people' style was a crucial factor in Fianna Fail being returned to power against all the odds.

And although Ahern will never repeat Lynch's 1977 landslide, the current Taoiseach has also achieved two things Lynch never managed . . . he has overseen a largely united party and won two elections in a row.

Furthermore, despite all the problems of the past three and a half years, he remains the red-hot favourite to be Taoiseach after the next general election.

Newspapers and private polls show that Ahern is still a major asset for Fianna Fail. No other politician comes close to matching his mass market appeal.

Indeed, how Fianna Fail in the post-Ahern era will cope without the personal popularity bonus he brings to the party will be interesting to observe. And it is a question that may arise sooner than many people imagine. Ahern has signalled that he will quit politics by 60, which seems a fair bit off given that he will only be 55 in September. But the reality is that his retirement as leader will come quite a bit before that 60th birthday.

Whatever happens, the next general election will be the Taoiseach's last. If Fianna Fail lose and are returned to opposition, Ahern will hardly stay on.

And even if he is returned as Taoiseach, it would be impossible for him to hang on until his 60th birthday.

That would be too close to a general election, giving his successor no time to settle into the position.

Political reality points to him standing down in 2009 or, at the latest, 2010. Which raises a very interesting question for the opposition parties in the next general election. Do they attempt to argue that a vote for Bertie Ahern in 2007 is actually a vote for Brian Cowen, or whoever else will succeed Ahern?

In the UK, the opposition parties used this strategy in the last general election, raising the point that a vote for Labour and Tony Blair was really a vote for Gordon Brown. It is surprising that Bertie Ahern's signalled retirement has not triggered a similar debate here.

One obvious concern for the opposition parties is that an attempt to focus the debate on Bertie Ahern's leadership, and the fact that he is planning to stand aside, will backfire. They may worry that Ahern is so popular that it would play into Fianna Fail's hands to make the election about 'Bertie'. Could it, in a worstcase scenario for the opposition, persuade sections of the electorate, tired of the government, to stick with Ahern precisely because he won't be there for much longer and because he deserves his swansong?

But, against that, opposition strategists may reckon that the best way of neutralising Ahern's popularity is to emphasise that he won't be around for long. The next few months should reveal whether the opposition chooses to run with this tactic. But whoever does succeed Bertie Ahern, it's a safe bet that they won't be challenging him for longevity in office. Number two in the Taoiseach's table and likely to stay there for a long, long time. Not bad for a man that nobody wanted to talk to when he first became Fianna Fail leader.