When the votes were counted Charlie survived by seven votes. He had, in fact, increased the majority by which he had first won the leadership over George Colley in the last secret vote in December 1979.
‘I saw at least two of my colleagues in the media turn visibly pale, total disbelief showing on their countenances,’ Raymond Smith wrote about hearing the news outside. ‘We did not believe our ears’.
THE BOSS
In late 1983 the publication of the book, The Boss caused a major political stir. Written by two journalists, Joe Joyce and Peter Murtagh, it was probably the most interesting and provocative book ever published on contemporary Irish politics.
Despite its subtitle, ‘Charles J. Haughey in Government’, the book was not so much about Charlie in government, as it was about the events which occurred while he was in power during 1982. In some cases he had no connection with the events under discussion and the authors might have taken a more dispassionate look at his actual role in the instances where he was involved.
Like so many others, the authors seemed inclined to presume Charlie’s guilt, despite his right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Easons, one of the major book distributors in the country, refused to handle The Boss for fear of being sued for libel. But this did not prevent it becoming a runaway bestseller, setting unprecedented sales records in the country for a book on a political topic. In a sense it was almost like another GUBU.
While readers would undoubtedly have been familiar with much of the material in the book because of the media’s extensive coverage within the past couple of years, the authors still brought out new information on virtually every facet of the story. They had the advantage of being able to provide a broader picture than the media had been able to give in the midst of the events. There was detailed coverage of the dismissed charge of double voting against Charlie’s election agent, and a thorough account of events leading to the O’Malley heave, the Gregory Deal, and Burke’s appointment to the European commission. There was also fresh material on the MacArthur affair, and the Dowra case in which Seán Doherty’s brother-in-law had the charges against him for assault dismissed after his victim failed to turn up in court. He had been ‘lifted’ by the police in Northern Ireland in an obvious attempt to prevent him testifying. He later won damages against both the police who detained him and the man who assaulted him.
The Boss was particularly good on the politicisation of the police, and the wire-tapping of the journalists. It went a long way to conveying the impression of fear that permeated opposition circles in 1982, when leading politicians, like Garret FitzGerald and Dick Spring, actually suspected that their telephones were being tapped. Frequently the authors did not actually give their own conclusions, they just led the reader to a point where conclusions seemed inescapable. But when they did come to conclusions, they seemed to judge Charlie by one set of standards and his critics by a very different criterion.
Charlie was depicted in a most unfavourable light over the Gregory Deal, while FitzGerald came off lightly even though he had also tried to make a deal. Burke’s appointment to the European commission was depicted as a piece of cynical opportunism, even though the reaction of Fine Gael was even more cynical, because, with the experience already gained in the past, Burke was obviously better qualified for the position when Charlie appointed him, than he had been when first appointed by the coalition government in 1976. Short term party considerations were paramount within Fine Gael, so it was unfair to depict Charlie as if he was the only one putting his own or his party’s considerations first.
The authors went even further in relation to the Charlie’s slip of the tongue in referring to Malcolm MacArthur as ‘the right man’ at the press conference following the resignation of the attorney-general. Charlie was ‘clearly in contempt of court’, Joyce and Murtagh wrote. ‘His aides pleaded with reporters not to publish or broadcast this remark. Those working for the Irish media were unable to in any event because if they did, they would have been as guilty as Haughey.’ This insinuated that Charlie’s remark had been premeditated, which was grossly unfair. When MacArthur’s lawyers tried to have Charlie cited for contempt of court, the judge accepted that he had made a genuine mistake. But the authors seemed to question the judge’s decision.
‘It did not stop some people thinking that the remark was part of a huge conspiracy to keep the case out of the courts and thus protect certain unnamed people, politicians and lawyers,’ they wrote. ‘Haughey, acting justice minister at the time and indeed himself a former justice minister, knew exactly what he was doing,’ they claimed. Of course, some foolish people will believe anything. It was wrong, however, to give credence to such distorted views by repeating them without identifying them as nonsense.
Still, Charlie could not escape responsibility for the activities of his Minister for Justice. He had selected him. The book documented some outrageous behaviour on the part of a number of individuals, but Malcolm MacArthur was the only person convicted of wrong doing. Whose fault was that?
The various accusations certainly warranted a thorough investigation, but the authors never tried to analyse why Charlie’s call for a judicial inquiry had been ignored. Was it because the other side was as guilty of some of the more colourful charges?
Charlie and members of his family came under intense public pressure following the publication of the book. His own frustration became apparent during a session of the New Ireland Forum, when he became involved in a confrontation with Dick Spring, who was infuriated by leaks to the media. Spring blamed Charlie, who replied that it was despicable to suggest that he would leak to the press. ‘No one has suffered more than I have from journalists,’ he emphasised. At that point, to the amazement of everyone, he burst into tears and he was led from the room sobbing. This was a human side of the political machine that Spring had never seen before.
Later that afternoon Charlie told Dick that his family had been greatly upset by The Boss. All their lives his children had to put up with abuse from people just because he was their father. On one occasion he recalled his daughter had to come home early from a gymkhana because she could not take any more abuse. This was understandably hard for any father to take. While Dick Spring appreciated the situation, he had little reason to feel sorry for Charlie.
Back in January 1982 when Dick was recovering from serious back injuries sustained in a car accident, Charlie had refused to allow anyone to pair with him on the forthcoming vote on the budget. As a result Dick had to make the arduous journey from his home in Tralee while in considerable pain. To make things worse, it was a wasted journey, seeing that the government was defeated on the budget anyway. Yet now, possibly for the first time, Dick had genuine sympathy for Charlie.
‘Immediately after the afternoon session,’ FitzGerald noted in his autobiography, ‘Dick and I were discussing Haughey’s breakdown together when we both suddenly realised that in response to queries from the Sunday Tribune about our likely Christmas reading we had each mentioned The Boss as a book that we would want to read during the break.’ Both felt so sorry for Charlie that Garret asked Vincent Browne, the editor of the Sunday Tribune, to replace The Boss with other works in the lists supplied by Dick and himself. Browne, who actually felt that The Boss was unfair to Charlie in many respects, readily agreed. Having had a tap of his own telephone authorised by Fine Gael ministers in two different governments, he had more reason than most to know that many of the insinuations being made against Charlie, could just as easily have been directed against his opponents.
The nickname the ‘Boss’ had an historical Irish connection. William Marcy Tweed, or ‘Boss Tweed’ as he was called, was the son of an Irish father. He built up the infamous influence of Tammany Hall to control New York politics from 1863 to 1871, when he was brought down in the midst of an enormous scandal over the misappropriation of funds. It was estimated that he had taken at least $6m for himself. His closest henchmen were Irish-Americans Peter Sweeney and Richard B. Conno
lly. The so-called Tweed Ring was accused of misappropriating up to $300m. Tweed was eventually convicted in 1873 on 204 counts of fraud, forgery and embezzlement. He was sentence to twelve years in jail, where he died in 1878.
Boss Richard Croker, was born in Clonakilty, Co. Cork, but reared in New York. He was a minor functionary in the Tweed Ring. Croker rose through the Tammany machine to gain control of New York politics during the late 1880s and early 1890s, but he fled to England in 1894 when Tammany was being investigated. He returned in 1897 to regain control. The opportunities for corruption flourish until 1902 when another investigation was held. Croker again retired to England and eventually to Ireland. In his later years, he dabbled in horse-racing, and one of his horses won the Epson Derby in 1907.
Haughey was so well read that he was undoubtedly aware of the historical significance of the name, the Boss, but he obviously did not care, because because he was apparently content to be called ‘the boss’.
BAILED OUT AGAIN
Charlie continued to live beyond his means and quickly got back into debt, especially while he was out of power from December 1982 to February 1987. At the start of this period in opposition, he borrowed £400,000 from Guinness & Mahon, where he would have four different bank accounts, which he said that Des Traynor opened without reference to him. But he had to accept that he applied for the loan. He tried to give the impression that Traynor ran his finances essentially without consulting him, but there is ample evidence to suggest that his own involvement was much more extensive than he tried to let on.
The Guinness & Mahon loan was to be repaid by 31 January 1985, but this was extended. Even £400,000 was not enough to fund Charlie’s life-style. In May of 1983, there were unexplained deposits in his account of £240,000, and he got a further £120,000 the following month when hotelier P.V. Doyle took out a loan for him that he promised to pay back. Doyle obtained another loan of £50,000 for Charlie in 1985. Haughey also received £50,000 from the billionaire Arab, Mahmud Fustok, supposedly for a horse that he had purchased. He gave the money to the independent deputy Dr John O’Connell, who paid with a cheque of his own. Nobody was able to provide any details about the mysterious horse.
By way of explanation, Charlie said that he had tried to interest Fustok in establishing some bloodstock business in Ireland. ‘I feel sure that his offering to purchase the yearling from us was by way of recompense for not acceding to any request,’ he explained. ‘I think it may have been a sort of gesture on his part.’
In the 1985 Charlie and Traynor organised funds for Haughey’s son Ciarán to establish a helicopter business in partnership with an American pilot John Barnicle, who put up just £60 each. Traynor organised things and Haughey approached people for money for Celtic Helicopters. They arranged to get money from Charlie’s contacts. They included John O’Connell, the former Labour party deputy, former chairman of Bord Fáilte Joe Malone, and the beef magnate Séamus Purcell. There may have been nothing wrong with a father helping out his son, but Traynor appeared to cross the line of corporate ethics, by involving himself in the organisation of a rival firm while he was acting as a director of Aer Lingus, a semi-state body that had it own helicopter subsidiary, Irish Helicopters.
Of course, it seems ludicrous to highlight Traynor’s lack of business ethics in this matter when one considers his other activities. He was already engaged in organising a massive tax evasion scheme for a number of business people and it can be demonstrated that he facilitated Charlie in diverting hundreds of thousands of pounds intended for the Fianna Fáil party.
Haughey used the party leader’s fund to launder money. This was a fund initially established by Eamon de Valera’s government in the 1930s to provide for a party secretariat and fund political research. From 1984 to 1992, the state contributed £1.05m to this fund, and Charlie topped it up to £1.5m with money donated to Fianna Fáil, or contributions towards a medical fund for Brian Lenihan to secure a liver transplant in the United States.
All cheques drawn on the account had to have two signatures of senior party members. The account, which was held at AIB branch in Baggot Street, was administered by Eileen Foy in Haughey’s office, and she and Charlie were the only people who knew how much was in the account. The records of deposits in the account, from 1980 to 1983, were destroyed along with other bank records from the period, so what happened to the account during those years remains a mystery.
The cheques drawn on the account between 1984 and 1992 were all co-signed by Charlie and either Ray MacSharry, the party’s finance spokesman, or by Bertie Ahern, the party’s chief whip. Ahern signed most of the cheques in an accommodating and unquestioning manner. Despite his own accountancy background, he signed most of them blank. He would sign up to thirty at a time. One cheque dated 16 June 1989 was subsequently made out to cash for £25,000. This was deposited in Haughey’s own account, as well as three other cheques made out in 1991. In February of that year, Ahern signed a whole book of blank cheques, which totally negated the control element of having two people sign the cheques.
Cheques co-signed by Ahern included two cheques for a total of £15,832 for Charlie’s Charvet shirts. There were also cheques for a total of £15,000 for meals at Le Cog Hardi restaurant between April and December 1991, and there were three cheques made out simply to cash for a total of £22,500. Those three cheques were deposited in Charlie’s own account. Of course, he was to claim that these were to cover legitimate expenses, such as entertaining in his own home, but then – as the call girl said in court during the infamous Profumo scandal in Britain – ‘he would say that, wouldn’t he?’
Only a fraction of the excess money has yet been explained. In 1986, some £134,00 extra was deposited in the leader’s fund. The Irish Permanent Building Society contributed £100,000 of that to Fianna Fáil. The money was in the form of two £50,000 cheques made out to the party. Both were signed by Haughey and deposited in the leader’s fund. Later £75,000 was withdrawn from the account in five cheques, which coincided with similar deposits into an account from which Des Traynor paid Haughey’s domestic bills. A sixth cheque made out to cash for £25,000, which was signed by Charlie and Bertie Ahern, was also deposited in the account. In effect, the leader’s fund was used to launder the £100,000 that was diverted, from Fianna Fáil.
Charlie was living so far beyond his means, that the £100,000 made little difference to his finances, which were again in a dreadful state. In 1986 Des Traynor left as managing director of Guinness & Mahon Bank to take up the position of chairman of Cement Roadstone Holdings (CRH), and the bank was taken over by the Japanese, who did not care whether Haughey was Taoiseach or not. They insisted that his loan and overdraft in the region of £900,000 be cleared up. Traynor moved Charlie’s account to a subsidiary, Ansbacher Cayman. But the new owners still desired that Haughey’s account should be straightened out. Traynor decided to raise the money by again tapping a number of business contacts. One of those he approach was the auditor of Dunne Stores, Noel Fox, who talked to Ben Dunne, the family member then controlling the business.
In January 1987 Dunne had handed over six cheques made out to ‘bearer’ for a total of £30,000 that somehow ended up in Charlie’s account. Neither of them could remember the circumstances afterwards, but Dunne had apparently demonstrated that he was prepared to give money to Haughey, and he was more than amenable to the idea of helping when Fox told him about Traynor’s approach. ‘I think Haughey is making a huge mistake trying to get six or seven people together,’ Dunne contended. ‘Christ picked twelve apostles and one of them crucified him.’ Consequently, Dunne offered to pay all the money himself.
He intended to source it outside the state, which was going to take some time. The first payment was a £285,000 sterling cheque drawn up in Northern Ireland on 20 May 1987. In December, there was a further cheque sourced in Northern Ireland for the sterling equivalent of £204,055, and the following summer Dunne provided a cheque worth £471,000 from Switzerland. Thus from May 1987
to the summer of 1988, he gave Haughey over £960,055, and he also gave Ciarán Haughey £100,000 for services rendered, both in flying him and looking for a private helicopter for him. That same year Haughey bought a new yacht for £122,000, but the source of that money was never traced, though Dermot Desmond of the Brokerage firm, NCB, paid £75,546 to have the yacht refurbished. He said that this was really an interest free loan to be repaid only if the boat was re-sold.
In 1989 there were European, local, and general elections and the money came rolling in to Haughey’s coffers. A total of £220,000 extra was deposited in the leader’s fund. This included money collected to defray Brian Lenihan’s medical expense for a liver transplant. That whole saga will be considered separately.
Mark Kavanagh gathered £100,000 for Fianna Fáil on behalf of the builders of the Financial Services Centre in June 1988. He was asked to put the money in the form of four cheques for £25,000 in 1989. He said that he handed the cheques to Charlie on election day. Haughey explained that Fianna Fáil would get half and £25,000 would go to Lenihan, while the remaining £25,000 would go to selected FF candidates. One of the cheques was lodged to his account and the other were exchanged for a draft for £50,000 and given to Fianna Fáil supposedly as a contribution from Michael Smurfit, who had contributed £60,000 through Des Traynor. Thus out of the £160,000 that was collected for Fianna Fáil and Lenihan, only £75,000 was handed over and the remaining £85,000 was retained by Haughey, who got another £150,000 from Ben Dunne in 1989.
Haughey's Forty Years of Controversy Page 17