Haughey's Forty Years of Controversy (2 page)

7 Feb 1983: Haughey won re-election as Fianna Fáil leader.

16 Dec 1983: broke down weeping at New Ireland Forum meeting.

26 Feb 1985: Des O'Malley expelled from Fianna Fáil.

29 Sept 1985: rescued after boat sank off Mizen Head.

25 Oct 1985: said he considers Col Gaddafi a friends and supports him.

17 Feb 1987: re-elected to tenth Dáil term at head of the poll.

10 Mar 1987: elected to third term as Taoiseach.

27 Mar 1987 cabinet approved draft bill to regularise withholding part of pensions of patients in nurshing homes

7 July 1988: report that Haughey retained gifts from Saudi royal family.

15 June 1989: re-elected to eleventh Dáil term.

28 June 1989: failed to win re-election as Taoiseach.

11 July 1989: concluded coalition agreement with PDs.

12 July 1989: elected Taoiseach for fourth time.

30 Oct 1990: dismissed Brian Lenihan as Tánaiste.

6 Nov 1991: motion challenging leadership tabled for Fianna Fáil meeting.

7 Nov 1991: sacks Albert Reynolds for backing motion and refusing to resign.

9 Nov 1991: Haughey survives leadership challenge.

13 Nov 1991: withdraws nomination of James McDaid as Minister for Defence.

15 Jan 1992: Seán Doherty says that Haughey was aware of taps on journalists in 1982.

30 Jan 1992: announces that he will resign as Taoiseach the following week.

7 Feb 1992: formally announces his resignation as Taoiseach.

11 Feb 1992: replaced as Taoiseach by Albert Reynolds.

20 Feb 1992: Ben Dunne has panic attack in Miami.

1 Oct 1992: honoured by Fianna Fáil national executive.

13 Oct 1992: began four days of testimony at Beef tribunal.

5 Nov 1992: retires from Dáil Éireann after more than 35 years.

11 May 1994: Des Traynor died.

3 Dec 1996: report that senior figure in Fianna Fáil received over £1 million from Ben Dunne.

6 Dec 1996: Phoenix magazine identifies Haughey as unidentified individual.

7 Feb 1997: McCracken tribunal set up.

15 July 1997: Haughey testified before the McCracken tribunal.

25 Aug 1997: McCracken report published criticising Haughey's sworn testimony.

27 Aug 1997: mistaken report that CJH was rescued by helicopter having fallen off his yacht in Dingle Harbour.

21 Jul 1998: summoned to appear in court on charges of obstructing McCracken tribunal.

15 Dec 1998: Appeals commissioner rules CJH had no tax liability for Dunne money.

14 May 1999: Terry Keane speaks of affair on Late Late Show.

17 Sep 1999: reports that Keane is auctioning Haughey memorabilia.

3 Apr 2000: paid £1,009,435 in tax and interest on Dunne money.

26 Jun 2000: Judge Kevin Haugh postponed obstruction trial indefinitely.

3 Jul 2000: High court upholds Judge Haugh's ruling.

21 Jul 2000: begins testimony at Moriarty tribunal for two hours a day over five days.

21 Sep 2000: begins 12 further days testimony at Moriarty tribunal.

18 Jan 2001: begins 20 days of testimony – one hour a day in camera.

15 Mar 2001: concludes testimony at Moriarty tribunal.

18 Mar 2003: announcement that revenue have agreed €5 in gift tax and penalties for money received (bringing total in back taxes and penalties to €6.28m).

Sept 2003: agrees to sell Abbeville and Kinsealy for €45 million.

Charlie Haughey and controversy seem almost synonymous. He has been involved in major political scandals of Watergate proportions in five different decades.

Unlike his great political rival, Garret FitzGerald, who was born into comfortable surroundings as the son of a cabinet minister, Charlie was the son of an army officer who retired early and then developed multiple sclerosis when Charlie was only a boy. Times were hard for the family of nine dependent on the sick father's small pension during the depression of the 1930s and the early 1940s. But young Charlie was a brilliant student and got through secondary school and university on academic scholarships.

The major scandals could be compared not only with the Watergate scandal in the United States but with the major scandals involving all the twentieth century American presidents – from the perjury and philandering accusations that led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton, to the arms controversy surrounding Ronald Reagan, to the telephone-tapping of Watergate and Richard Nixon, to the tax evasion that led to the resignation of his vice president Spiro Agnew, and even back to the business affairs of the Tea Pot Dome Scandal, which rocked American politics in the 1920s. Haughey was involved in different major scandals that could be compared with each of those. In the midst of his dispute with the National Farmers' Association in 1966, his father-in-law, Seán Lemass, resigned as Taoiseach. Four years later in 1970 came the arms crisis, which was undoubtedly the most serious political crisis in the state since the civil war. In 1983 he found himself implicated in Liffeygate – a controversy surrounding taps on the telephones of two journalists. It was a hang-over of this controversy that eventually brought him down in 1992. Then while he was in retirement Charlie's past came back to haunt him with the exposure of a whole series of scandals surrounding his financial affairs, getting the banks to write off a significant portion of his loans, borrowing, bumming and misappropriating money.

In his final address to the Dáil as Taoiseach on 11 February 1992, Charlie quoted from Othello: ‘I have done the state some service, and they know't,' he said. ‘No more of that.'

This is not the story of his service much less his achievements, though the ways in which – in the face of considerable adversity – he bounced back from a whole series of political controversies were in themselves tremendous achievements. The four major controversies already mentioned were just the more notorious.

There were also many others, beginning with the Macushla Affair, which involved the virtual mutiny of extensive elements of the garda síochána shortly after Charlie took over as Minister for Justice in 1961. In this and other controversies Charlie was really blameless. He inherited the mess.

This book seeks to examine dispassionately the various political controversies extending from 1961 through the ‘secret courts', his role in the presidential election of 1966, and his disputes with the farmers and RTÉ the same year, his role in Taca, his long-standing feuds with George Colley and Dessie O'Malley, the arms crisis, arms trial, the Gibbons confidence vote, the public accounts inquiry, his election as leader of Fianna Fáil, the ‘flawed pedigree' controversy, the leadership heaves, the GUBUs, the deals and strokes, problems with telephones, political u-turns, leading Fianna Fáil into coalition, sacking his own Tánaiste, his resignation as Taoiseach and his retirement from politics.

Part of this book initially appeared under the title Haughey's Thirty Years of Controversy in 1992 and Fallen Idol in 1997. In the decade since then the opening of the State Papers up to 1972 has thrown new light on a number of the earlier incidents, especially events surrounding the arms crisis.

Even in retirement Haughey has been at the centre of controversy over the handling of his financial affairs going back over a quarter of a century – the writing off of part of his AIB loans, the Ben Dunne money, the misappropriation of money donated either to Fianna Fáil, or for his Tánaiste's liver transplant operation. His prevarications were to lead to him being charged with obstructing the McCracken tribunal, and his affairs are still the focus of the Moriarty tribunal.

TRD
Tralee

As Taoiseach Charles J. Haughey was described as the acceptable face of fantasy – the poor boy who grew up to become a powerful and fabulously wealthy man.

Unlike his great political rival, Garret FitzGerald, who was born into comfortable surroundings as the son of a cabinet minister, Charlie was the son of an army officer who retired early and then developed multiple sclerosis when Charlie was only a boy. Times were hard for the family of nine dependent on the sick father's small pension during the depression of the 1930s and the early 1940s. But young Charlie was a brilliant student and got through secondary school and university on academic scholarships.

In 1951 he married Maureen Lemass, the daughter of Tánaiste Seán Lemass. Six years later at the age of thirty-one he was elected to the Dáil, at his fourth attempt. After more than four years on the backbenches he was selected as parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Justice in the government of his father-in-law Seán Lemass, who had taken over from Eamon de Valera as Taoiseach in 1959.

Charlie quickly established a reputation for himself as a legislator by successfully piloting a whole series of bills through the Oireachtas. These included bills on defamation, civil liability and rent restrictions.

As the legislative decks were being cleared to make way for a general election in 1961, James Dillon, the leader of Fine Gael, complimented Charlie in the Dáil not only ‘on the skill with which he has had recourse to his brief', but also on ‘his extraordinary erudition', together with ‘his exceptional and outstanding ability'. It was a tremendous tribute for the leader of the opposition to pay to a young opponent, especially right before a general election.

At the start of his second term in the Dáil Charlie was appointed to the cabinet as Minister for Justice by Lemass, but there was no question of nepotism. He deserved the post and this was recognised even by the opposition which welcomed his appointment.

He got on well with his staff at justice. Peter Berry, the secretary of the department, had a good though sometimes stormy working relationship with him. ‘Haughey was a dynamic minister,' Berry recalled years later. ‘He was a joy to work with and the longer he stayed the better he got'. He was quick to master bureaucratic ways of formulating and implementing policy. Having served in the department under different ministers beginning with Kevin O'Higgins back in the 1920s, Berry noted that ‘Haughey learned fast and was in complete control of his department from the outset'. In fact, he rated him ‘the ablest' of all those ministers.

‘He did not interfere in minor details,' Berry explained, ‘but where political kudos or political disadvantage might arise he was sharp as a razor'.

The department had often been frustrated by a lack of money until Charlie's appointment. ‘Successive Ministers for Justice had failed to get the necessary monies from the Department of Finance but Mr Haughey proved very adroit at extracting the necessary financial support,' Berry noted. He was a good man to cut through red tape.

Working long hours – on average a ten-hour day – Charlie prided himself on efficiency and getting things done. He could be a good listener, but he became irritable when people became long-winded. He sought to emulate the capacity of his father-in-law to make decisions quickly without agonising interminably over them as had been the practice in the de Valera governments.

As Minister for Justice, he was responsible for a phenomenal volume of legislation dealing with adoption, extradition, the abolition of capital punishment, the introduction of free legal aid and a number of bills to update the antiquated legal system. In 1964 he introduced the succession bill, a novel piece of legislation designed to ensure that dependents were provided for in any will. This was to prevent a repetition of cases in which the bulk of estates were bequeathed to a church for something like masses while dependents were left virtually destitute.

As the succession bill was being considered in the Dáil, Charlie was made Minister of Agriculture in place of Paddy Smith, who had resigned in protest over government policy. The move was widely considered a promotion.

Charlie remained in the new post for two-and-a-half years. Towards the end of his stay things became somewhat stormy, but, following the resignation of Seán Lemass in November 1966, he secured what was seen as the second most important post in the government. He was appointed Minister for Finance by the new Taoiseach, Jack Lynch.

Although critics often depicted him as an uncaring capitalist, Charlie demonstrated a distinct social concern. He admitted to being fascinated by politics and being lured into political life by his wish to get things done. ‘What politics should be about,' he once said, ‘is making the world a better place for those you serve.'

It was he who introduced the farmers' dole to help the agricultural sector during the winter months, but it was his assistance to pensioners which attracted most attention. His budgets were remarkable for a whole series of novel and comparatively cheap give-aways. Ever mindful of his late father's plight, he introduced imaginative schemes to help people on the old-age pension, such as free rail and bus travel during off-peak hours, free electricity and free telephone rental, as well duty-free petrol for disabled drivers of all ages. He also won a reputation for himself as a champion of the arts by introducing legislation to exempt the earnings of artists and writers from income tax. Another novel proposal was an exchequer grant of £100 for the birth of triplets, and £150 for quads. The whole thing would not even cost £1,000 in a year, because there were so few triplets born, and he admitted that there was no known case of quads being born in Ireland.

Some critics dismissed these as gimmicks to win votes. ‘No one will dispute,' the playwright Hugh Leonard once wrote, ‘that to catch a vote Mr Haughey would unhesitatingly roller-skate backwards into a nunnery, naked from the waist down and singing
Kevin Barry
in Swahili.' Yet pleasing people is the very essence of representative democracy, as far as Charlie was concerned.