Ahern also attended as a local Fianna Fáil minister along with Richie Healy in the Redemptorist Church, Dundalk.

In 1997, he was sent to London to check out rumours that another senior party member, Ray Burke, had received a payment from Joseph Murphy.

The claim was denied and Burke was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs two days later following the return to power of Fianna Fáil.

In the 1997 Irish presidential election Mary McAleese sought and won the Fianna Fáil nomination at the expense of Albert Reynolds.

[7] Following the 1997 general election, a Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats came to power, Ahern was appointed Minister for Community, Social and Family Affairs.

Following the return of the government at the 2002 general election, Ahern was appointed Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources.

His Department introduced a system of Policy Directions to the telecoms regulator mandating, amongst other things, Flat Rate Internet Access.

It also devised the Ireland's Broadband Action Plan which entailed the government building an alternative fibre infrastructure and co-location facilities.

Following a cabinet reshuffle in 2004, Ahern became Minister for Foreign Affairs, the first Louth TD to hold that position since Frank Aiken in the 1960s.

Shortly into his tenure in April 2005, Ahern was appointed one of four special envoys for United Nations reform by the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

In this regard he took an extremely outspoken line on the crisis in Darfur, calling on the international community to 'wake up to the reality of rape, murder and destruction in the region.

[9] He has stated that, in foreign policy terms, 'the single greatest, economic, environmental, geopolitical issue now facing us is climate change.

[11] Ahern met with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Peter Hain, US Ambassador to Ireland James C. Kenny, US Ambassador to the United Kingdom Robert H. Tuttle, the leadership of each of the main political parties involved in the process for peace, as well as three United States Congress members, James T. Walsh, Brian Higgins, and Tim Murphy.

[13] Like many others in his party, therefore, Ahern describes himself as a republican, and made an associated statement regarding his self-identification at the 2006 Seán Moylan commemoration in Cork.

At the 2006 Moylan commemoration, Ahern was quoted, stating: "As an Irish Republican, my main personal and political goal is to live to see the unity of Ireland".

On 29 April 2009, Ahern proposed a controversial amendment to the Defamation Bill adding the crime of blasphemy to the statute books.

[19] This amendment has been criticised by many within the public sphere, free speech campaigners and some ministers of European Union member states.

Ahern himself added: "Will we eventually see the day in this country when, as has happened in the USA, homosexuals will seek the right to adopt children?

Following his appointment as Minister responsible for equality, Ahern refused to be drawn on the matter and did not give an answer as to whether he still held these opinions.