FORMER TAOISEACH BERTIE Ahern has been asked again whether he intends to run in the 2025 presidential election but refused to give an answer one way or the other.

Speculation has circulated on what role the former Fianna Fáil leader will take in the party after he was recently readmitted as an ordinary member.

Senior Fianna Fáil figures have emphasised that he would not take on any senior party role, with Tánaiste Micheál Martin saying that his membership is welcome in the context of his “outstanding” contribution to peace on the island, ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

Ahern himself has said that he has “no intention of going back to my old job” and suggested that the 2025 presidential election is too far away to clarify whether he intends to run.

After an address to a gathering of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly at Stormont today, Ahern told reporters that there was “lots of speculation about a lot of things”.

“I keep away from that,” he said of the Áras bid rumours.

“All I did was join my local Cumman branch in Drumcondra and that led to all kinds of speculation, so don’t listen to that too much.”

When asked whether he had no interest in running for the presidency, he replied: “I didn’t say that.”

When asked did this mean he was interested in the role, he said: “I didn’t say that either.”

Darran Marshall / Twitter Darran Marshall / Twitter / Twitter

Ahern left Fianna Fáil in 2012 as efforts began within the party to expel him following a tribunal’s findings.

The Mahon Tribunal, which looked at allegations of planning corruption, did not find Ahern to be corrupt but it said he did not “truthfully account” for money he lodged into his bank account.

With Fianna Fáil stuck in the mid-teens to high-20s in opinion polls, speculation abounds about the consequences of the former Taoiseach’s return to his party.

As leader of Fianna Fáil, the Dublin politician won three back-to-back elections for the party and served as Taoiseach from 1997 to 2008.