Haughey's Forty Years of Controversy (25 page)

Brian Lenihan had been associated with Charlie in the public mind ever since the 1960s when John Healy dubbed him one of the three musketeers, along with Haughey and Donagh O'Malley. Lenihan was first elected to the Dáil in 1961, when he took the seat of the long time Minister for Justice Gerald Boland. During that Dáil term, he actually became Minister for Justice himself when he replaced Charles Haughey after his surprised appointment as Minister for Agriculture in October 1964. He liked to think of himself as keeping close to both of the main factions within Fianna Fáil. As Minister for Transport and Power in 1970 he tipped off the people behind the gun-running that the special branch were set to seize the weapons upon arrival, but he backed Jack Lynch in the ensuing arms crisis.

In the aftermath of the 1979 leadership contest between Colley and Haughey, there was confusion over Lenihan's role. Vincent Browne maintained Lenihan and Ray Burke were distraught on the night of the contest because that they had backed the loser. Lenihan had already told his family that he was faced with the choice of backing a fool or a knave. Years later he stated publicly that he had actually voted for Haughey in that contest.

Charlie retained Lenihan and most of Lynch's cabinet in his own government and appointed him to each of his subsequent governments. Lenihan became vocal in his support of Haughey during the various heaves against his leadership. In 1987, Lenihan was appointed to the prestigious post of Minister for Foreign Affairs and was retained even after he became ill with a serious liver complaint shortly afterwards. During the next couple of years, Lenihan deteriorated visibly. By April 1989 he was obviously dying. His family was told that his only chance of survival was for him to have liver transplant.

Charlie learned that Lenihan had only about a month to live from Catherine Butler, his personal assistant, who said that the Taoiseach broke down and wept at the news. Lenihan could not afford the cost of such an operation at the Mayo Clinic in the United States, so Haughey initiated a fundraising effort. ‘There was nobody else,' he later testified, ‘nobody else in the position, or able to, or prepared to take the initiative in that regard.'

Charlie asked Paul Kavanagh, the main Fianna Fáil fundraiser, to organise a collection. Kavanagh drew up a list of sixteen wealthy businessmen that he planned to approach. They were Fred Danza Agna, Oliver Barry, Michael Behan, Leo Cafollo, Ben Dunne, Edmund Farrell, Tadgh Gallagher, Larry Goodman, John Horgan, Gus Kearney, Dan McInerney, J. P. McManus, Oliver Murphy, S. F. Rafique and Séamus Tully. When Kavanagh showed this list to Charlie, he promptly crossed out the name of Ben Dunne.

‘I never asked the reason,' Kavanagh later said. Having worked for Haughey for ten years, he knew the procedure. ‘When he did something like that, that was it,' Kavanagh explained. ‘You didn't ask why.'

The explanation would seem obvious enough in the light that Dunne had already agreed to contribute £1 million towards Haughey's personal expenses, but Charlie insisted that he knew nothing of that arrangement. Yet, his behaviour in relation to crossing off Dunne's name would seem to suggest otherwise.

The fundraising for Lenihan was complicated by political developments. On 26 April 1989 Charlie returned from a official visit to Japan to learn that Fianna Fáil had problems in the Dáil over a Labour party amendment calling on the government to increase an offer of a quarter of a million pounds to haemophiliacs infected with the AIDS virus. The amendment, which was passed over Fianna Fáil objections, allocated £400,000 for the victims.

For more than a year Fianna Fáil had been enjoying over 50% support in the public opinion polls, and Charlie saw the Dáil defeat – the sixth his government had suffered since taking office – as an excuse to call a snap election in the hope of securing the elusive ‘working majority'. He immediately indicated that he was thinking of calling a general election which would seem to suggest that he had allowed his pique to get the better of his judgment.

As the general election would have to be held within thirty days of the dissolution of the Dáil, it would have meant that the election would have to be held before the end of May. As the European elections were already scheduled for 15 June, this would have meant two national elections within a month. If the haemophiliac question had been made an issue of confidence beforehand, he would have had no choice, but having failed to do this, he would now have difficulty justifying the unnecessary expense of two national elections so close together.

Thus he had to wait for almost three weeks before he could ask for an election. Having already shown his hand, however, it became all too obvious that he was waiting to hold a general election in conjunction with the European elections.

Albert Reynolds, the Minister for Finance, advised against a general election, and Fine Gael made desperate efforts to avoid one, going so far as to offer to negotiate a formal economic accord with the government to provide backing on agreed legislation.

During the legislative year beginning in October 1988, Fine Gael had voted with the government on 42 occasions and abstained 8 times, and only voted against 12 times. Such co-operation between the two major parties was unprecedented, with the result that there was a strong public perception that the general election was unnecessary. Nevertheless, on 25 May Charlie announced a general election to be held in conjunction with the European elections.

Meanwhile Charlie took the initiative in tapping a number of people for money for Lenihan. He summoned Tom Ryan of the Voluntary Health Insurance (VHI), which subsequently agreed at a board meeting on 18 May to make an
ex gratia
payment, and actually paid £57,247 in August following the transplant.

Haughey had already approached Edmund Farrell of the Irish Permanent Building Society for an election contribution for himself and Fianna Fáil. Farrell had persuaded his board to authorise £65,000 to the party and £10,000 to Charlie, who then asked Farrell on 7 June for a further contribution towards Lenihan's operation fund. ‘Who should the cheque be made out to?' Farrell asked.

‘Myself,' replied Charlie.

‘On behalf of the members of the society, we are pleased to endorse a cheque for £20,000 to help meet the expense of Mr Lenihan's operation,' Farrell explained in a covering note. The cheque was made out to ‘C. J. Haughey (B. Lenihan)'. Farrell also enclosed a cheque for £10,000 to help with Charlie's elections expenses. Those two cheques were endorsed by Haughey and deposited in the Bank of Ireland account of Celtic Helicopters at Dublin airport.

Various businessmen contributed on behalf of themselves or their companies. They included Larry Goodman, who gave £25,000; Edmund Farrell, John Magnier, Séamus Tully and Mark Kavanagh, who gave £20,000 each; Eamon de Valera and Nicholas Fitzpatrick gave £10,000 each on behalf of their companies, while Oliver Murphy gave £5,000. Those contributions came to a total of £130,000.

In the five week period around the time of Lenihan's operation over £180,000 extra was deposited in the party leader's account, in addition to money from the exchequer. It was not clear exactly how much of that was intended as a contribution towards the medical expenses and how much was for election expenses. But it can be established clearly that nothing like even £130,000 was contributed out of this money towards Lenihan's expenses. Hence, despite Charlie's assertions to the contrary, a considerable amount of money was obviously kept.

Haughey later explained that depositing the money in the account of Celtic Helicopters had been a mistake. On 13 June 1989 the £30,000 was withdrawn from the account in the form of a cheque made payable to cash. This cheque was delivered to the Taoiseach's office but it was subsequently exchanged for cash at AIB, Baggot Street, where the leader's account was held. It was not deposited in the leader's account, as the various deposits in the account at the time can be explained by other contributions. All trace of that the building society's contribution of £20,000 earmarked for Lenihan vanished at that point.

Money provided from the leader's account was used to pay various bills incurred by Lenihan in connection with the operation. For instance, £54,498.58 was paid to the Mayo Clinic from the account in 1989. In addition, a total of £10,007.12 was paid to the Department of Foreign Affairs in connection with expenses incurred by Lenihan. The following March another £5,727.23 was withdrawn to pay for three further international cheques to the Mayo Clinic, a nearby hotel, and a limousine service.

Eileen Foy testified that she thought that Charlie also provided the Lenihans with cash to cover their expenses, but she could not explain why she believed this. Anne Lenihan, Brian's wife, said that the only cash that she or her husband received was on the day that they left for the United States, when Haughey sent his driver over with £200 in an envelope. At the time, she thought it was a generous gesture. But on reflection, it hardly looked so, especially when there was a massive surplus in the account and the amount given would not even have paid for one of Haughey's shirts.

In early 1991, a bill for Lenihan's travel expenses to the United States was presented by the Department of Defence. The total cost of this came to £12,914.50. There should have been ample money in the leader's account to cover those expenses as there should still have been a surplus of at least £49,000, but Charlie called Paul Kavanagh to raise further money to cover Lenihan's expenses. He said that £50,000 extra was needed.

It was suggested to Paul Kavanagh that Philip Monahan, a property developer and neighbour of Lenihan, would possibly give that total himself, so Kavanagh approached him. Monahan duly wrote out a cheque for £25,000. This was deposited in the leader's fund, and the Department of Defence bill was paid that day.

The total amount contributed to the collection for Lenihan being conducted by Haughey was at least £155,000, just counting those confirmed contributions already noted. The amount paid out of the leader's account towards Lenihan's expenses came to just over £83,000, so there should have been a surplus of over £71,000 that Charlie was unable to explain.

When all of this was exposed little over a decade later, Haughey indignantly refuted suggestions that he had misappropriated the money. He said that what he did for Lenihan was ‘the most compassionate thing I've ever done in my life.'

‘I think it's absolutely preposterous that this whole genuine charitable effort on my part at the time should now, 20 years or so later, be sought to be turned against me in a most cruel fashion, that I would deliberately divert for my own purposes money which was subscribed by well-meaning people for the good and salvation of my friend, Brian Lenihan,' Charlie declared. ‘I watched him fade away in 1988–1989. I watched over him. I protected him. I kept him in office when he was hardly able to perform the functions of his office.'

In effect, Haughey was virtually saying that he betrayed the trust of his own office to help his friend by keeping him in office too long. ‘I kept his job open for him, did it myself in so far as it had to be done, and when he came out of hospital that time,' he said, ‘I again looked after him in government, and personally.'

Charlie seemed to be protesting too much, as he was stung by the suggestion that he would misappropriate money in such circumstances. In fairness, it should be emphasised that his initiative probably did save Lenihan's life and afforded him a further six years. Lenihan's son Brian publicly declared during this controversy that it was to Haughey's credit that he did come forward to help his father at a critical time. ‘Very much to his credit,' young Lenihan said, ‘he came forward and said that he would help in every way possible.' The money was used to pay all of Lenihan's bills; it was the surplus that was misappropriated.

Of course, that does not in anyway excuse this behaviour. In all, when one includes his influence in persuading the VHI to contribute £57,247, Haughey was instrumental in raising over £200,000 for Lenihan's operation. He was proud of doing that for his friend, but he balked at the opposition's insistence on providing an extra £150,000 compensation for the more than one hundred haemophiliacs infected with the AIDS virus as a result of receiving tainted blood and blood products provided by state.

The whole blood saga was arguably one of the greatest scandals in the history of the state. Through a mixture of bungling, ignorance, incompetence and indifference, 104 Irish people were infected with the AIDS virus through tainted blood or blood products. A further 217 haemophiliacs were infected with hepatitis C. Nearly all of those were infected prior to Charlie's return to government in 1987, so the opposition's role calling for the £250,000 in compensation to be raised to £400,000 was understandable, but Haughey used the whole thing as a pretext for calling a general election in 1989.

Fianna Fáil gave two reasons for calling the general election of 1989. One, there was a danger the government would be defeated on the health budget, which would necessitate a general election anyway. Two, it was argued that there was a need for political stability as Ireland was due to take over the presidency of the European Community at the start of the new year. Many people did not accept these arguments. They suspected it was an attempt by Charlie to shake off the opposition shackles that were forcing him to pursue responsible policies.

In the circumstances the Haughey Factor re-appeared. Although it never became as great an issue as in some of the earlier elections, it was always there and in tight races – where a comparatively small number of votes could mean the difference between victory and defeat – it became very important.

Ever since the
Taca
controversy Fianna Fáil had been particularly vulnerable to suspicion that it was prepared to do improper favours for businessmen in return for contributions to party funds. Whether this was unfair or not, it was nevertheless widely believed, with the result that the public tended to look with deep suspicion on any kind of cosy relationship between a Fianna Fáil government and the business community.