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On 1 January Ireland assumed the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union for six months. It was the State’s sixth such presidency, and Ahern also chaired meetings of the European Council during the term. The role placed a relatively small member state at the centre of a Union preparing both for its largest enlargement and for a contentious attempt at institutional reform. Irish ministers and civil servants had to act as brokers among governments whose interests and political traditions were often sharply different.
The year began with a disaster on the south-west coast. Shortly before 1 a.m. on 8 January, the French tanker Betelgeuse exploded while discharging crude oil at the Gulf Oil terminal off Whiddy Island in Bantry Bay. The vessel broke apart and burned; emergency crews faced an immense fire at the offshore jetty, while families living on the island were evacuated. Fifty people died in the explosion and its immediate aftermath, among them French, Irish and British workers; a Dutch diver later died during the salvage operation.
