Documentary paints just one side of the life of Brian

If RTÉ’s highly-publicised documentary on the Brian Cowen days served any useful purpose, it was to allow a succession of former Fianna Fáil and Green Party Ministers the chance to go on national television to declare that no part of the financial crisis was in any way their fault.

It also allowed the grande dame of Irish politics, Mary O’Rourke, to put the knife into her old adversary and twist it like a corkscrew until the last drop of blood drained from his political corpse.

At least his other old adversaries John McGuinness and Mattie McGrath had had the bottle to say it at the time – but surely there was someone who had a good word to say about him who might have been included if only to give the smallest semblance of balance.

The title of this two-parter, Crisis – Inside the Cowen Government, made it clear that it wasn’t going to be a valedictory commentary on the former Fianna Fáil leader’s three years at the helm, and in fairness you’d be deluded to the point of certifiable if that was your intention in the first place.

But, while it was stylishly edited and produced, there was an agenda here that went beyond mere comment or analysis; they didn’t waste a single opportunity to use a photo of the former Taoiseach with another twisted gurning expression on his face, another drink in his hand, another song in his heart or another ‘rabbit in headlamps’ look in the heat of battle.

There were the snide comments about his mobile home in Ballyconneely – as though he’d have been better off swanning off to Portugal – and his evenings in the Dáil bar, when his real failure, which was certainly touched on, was that he refused to take advice.And then again his loyal sidekick Brian Lenihan is equally lambasted because he took advice from everyone – so you’re dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t.

The programme maker, Pat Leahy, the Sunday Business Post’s political editor, is a very fine journalist and an insightful commentator, but this was a hatchet job from start to finish. And while nobody would argue that Cowen’s time at the helm was a roaring success, even he shouldn’t be blamed for everything that went wrong on his watch.

For more, read this week's Connacht Sentinel.