DEDICATED TO
FIONA, DAVE, AND NORA DEENEY
HAUGHEY'S FORTY YEARS
OF CONTROVERSY
T. RYLE DWYER
MERCIER PRESS
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© T. Ryle Dwyer 1992, 2005
Epub ISBN: 9781856357241
Mobi ISBN: 9781856357616
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CJH DIARY
16 September 1925: CJH born in Castlebar, Co. Mayo.
1928: Seán Haughey’s retired from army and the family settled in Dunshaughlin, Co. Meath.
1933: family moved to Donnycarney, Dublin.
7 May 1945: sparks riot in Dublin after burning Union Jack.
1946: earned Bachelor of Commerce degree from UCD.
1948: joined Fianna Fáil.
1949: called to the bar.
1951: joined with Harry Boland in establishing Haughey Boland accountancy firm.
30 May 1951: defeated as Fianna Fáil candidate in general election (lost deposit).
18 Sept 1951: married Maureen Lemass.
1953: co-opted to Dublin Corporation.
18 Jun 1954: CJH defeated as Fianna Fáil candidate in general election (lost deposit).
23 Jun 1955: fails to hold seat on Dublin Corporation to which he was co-opted.
30 Apr 1956: defeated in Dáil by-election in Dublin North East.
5 Mar 1957: elected to Dáil Éireann.
9 May 1960: appointed parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Justice.
4 Oct 1961: re-elected to second Dáil term at head of poll in general election.
11 Oct 1961: appointed Minister for Justice.
22 Nov 1961: announces re-activation of Special Criminal Court.
17 Jun 1964: introduces Succession Bill.
8 Oct 1964: appointed Minister for Agriculture.
7 Apr 1965: re-elected to third Dáil term at head of the poll.
28 Apr 1966: ICMSA farmers jailed for picketing Leinster House.
Over 500 arrested and jailed in the ensuing dispute.
26 May 1966: concedes most of ICMSA demands.
June 1966: National director of elections for President de Valera’s re-election campaign.
28 Sept 1966: protests to RTÉ over contradiction of his statement.
7 Oct 1966: National Farmers’ Association set out on protest march to Dublin.
19 Oct 1966: refuses to meet NFA, who begin a sleep-in outside his office.
31 Oct 1966 story of impending retirement of Seán Lemass breaks.
8 Nov 1966: Lemass and Haughey patch up deal with NFA.
9 Nov 1966: Jack Lynch elected leader of Fianna Fáil.
11 Nov 1966: appointed Minister for Finance.
11 Apr 1967: announces free travel for elderly.
May 1967: George Colley, in Galway, refers to low standards in high places.
20 Sept 1968: badly injured when he crashed his state car at Cooadnagan Bridge.
7 May 1969: announces income tax concessions for writers and artists.
29 May 1969: reports that Haughey sold Grangemore for £204,500.
18 Jun 1969: re-elected to fourth Dáil term at head of the poll.
2 Jul 1969: re-appointed Minister for Finance.
16 Aug1969: authorised by government to provide money for victims of unrest in Northern Ireland.
20 Aug 1969: tells cabinet of secret meeting with IRA chief of staff, Cathal Goulding.
19 Mar 1970: CJH instructs customs to admit arms consignment without inspection.
17 Apr 1970: Garda commissioner informed of plot to import guns.
18 Apr 1970: asks Berry if guns will be admitted if they go straight to Northern Ireland.
21 Apr 1970: hospitalised after fall from horse; Lynch delivered his budget address.
29 Apr 1970: visited in hospital by Lynch.
1 May 1970: Lynch informs cabinet that there will be no action over arms affair.
5 May 1970: CJH sacked as Minister for Finance.
6 May 1970: Arms crisis erupts.
28 May 1970: arrested and charged with conspiracy to import arms illegally.
9 Sept: 1970: secret meeting with Minister for Justice Des O’Malley.
22 Sept 1970: Arms trial begins.
29 Sept 1970: mistrial declared by judge.
6 Oct 1970: new Arms Trial begins.
19 Oct 1970: Haughey testifies at arms trial.
23 Oct 1970: CJH and others acquitted.
2 Mar 1971: begins testimony before Dáil Committee of Public Accounts.
17 Jan 1972: begins affair with Terry Keane.
19 Feb 1972: elected vice-president of Fianna Fáil.
10 Feb 1973: Frank Aiken retires from politics in protest at CJH’s ratification as Fianna Fáil candidate.
28 Feb 1973: re-elected to Dáil at head of poll.
16 Feb 1974: elected joint national secretary of Fianna Fáil.
30 Jan 1975: appointed Fianna Fáil front bench as spokesman for Health and Social Welfare.
16 June 1977: re-elected to Dáil at head of the poll.
5 July 1977: appointed Minister for Health and Social Welfare.
2 June 1978: CJH meets bishops to discuss Family Planning legislation.
2 Aug 1978: introduces bill to curb tobacco advertising.
28 Feb 1979: declares Family Planning Bill ‘an Irish solution to an Irish problem’.
7 Dec 1979: elected Fianna Fáil leader.
11 Dec 1979: elected Taoiseach.
10 Jan 1980: warns that the country is living beyond its means.
21 May 1980: meet Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in London.
8 Dec 1980: Anglo-Irish summit at Dublin Castle.
14 Feb 1981: Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis called off after Stardust disaster.
11 June 1981: re-elected to Dáil at head of the poll.
30 June 1981: replaced by Garret FitzGerald as Taoiseach.
27 Jan 1982: unable to contact President Hillery by telephone.
18 Feb 1982: re-elected to Dáil at head of the poll.
25 Feb 1982: re-elected leader of FF after O’Malley withdraws challenge.
8 Mar 1982: signs deal for support of Tony Gregory.
9 Mar 1982: elected Taoiseach for second time.
30 Mar 1982: Haughey appoints Dick Burke to European commission.
6 May 1982: announces that Ireland will be asking EEC to end sanctions against Argentina.
22 June 1982: disclosure of override facility to intercept all Leinster House calls.
17 Aug 1982: accepted Patrick Connolly resignation as AG and gives rise to GUBU.
6 Oct 1982: staved off heave led by Charlie McCreevy.
4 Nov 1982: government lost confidence motion.
25 Nov 1982: re-elected to ninth Dáil term at head of poll.
14 Dec 1982: replaced by Garret FitzGerald as Taoiseach.
19 Dec 1982: Haughey says he would not countenance tapping journalists’ phones.
7 Feb 1983: Haughey won re-election as Fianna Fáil leader.
16 Dec 1983: broke do
wn 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.
PREFACE
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
THE GREAT SURVIVOR
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 Cha
rlie 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.
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