Haughey's Forty Years of Controversy (22 page)

In October after McCreevy introduced his motion of no confidence, it was said that Charlie would remain on as Taoiseach regardless of the outcome of the vote. He had been elected to the office by the Dáil so by law – irrespective of whether he had the majority support of his own party – he would remained as Taoiseach until replaced by the Dáil. In view of the earlier arguments, many people believed that Charlie was implying in his latest statement that the parliamentary party did not have the authority to remove him, though he did not specifically put forward this argument.

‘It was a most dreadful statement from a party leader,' Briscoe declared in a RTÉ interview. ‘If you examine it line by line you could only come to the conclusion that Mr Haughey no longer recognises the right of the parliamentary party which elected him to remove him from office.'

Briscoe therefore decided to force the issue by formally proposing a motion for Monday's meeting calling for ‘the resignation of Mr Charles J. Haughey as party leader now'.

Amid the furore Charlie issued a further statement on Saturday, 4 February, emphasising he would accept the decision of the party meeting. ‘I want it stated publicly and clearly,' he declared, ‘that any decision of the parliamentary party will be fully accepted by me'.

Interviewed on a RTÉ lunchtime news next day, he stressed that his statement on Thursday had been misinterpreted. He would, he said, ‘with honour and dignity accept any decision of the parliamentary party '.

If somebody else should be elected to succeed him next day, Charlie said that person would be accepted as president of the whole Fianna Fáil organisation. ‘That's the way it's been done in the past,' he added. ‘That's the way it will be done in the future'.

The odds seemed very much against him. Having initially excluded the possibility of his survival the bookmakers listed him only in joint fourth place with O'Kennedy behind Collins, O'Malley and John Wilson. ‘Even paying exaggerated respect to Mr Haughey's recuperative power and ability to survive,' the
Cork Examiner
declared, ‘today should see the end of the Haughey era'.

The meeting, which lasted throughout the day and late into the night, began with skirmishes over whether to discuss the leadership issue first or the report of the Tunney committee set up to investigate the whole tapping controversy. O'Malley's supporters wanted to discuss the leadership, but this was beaten on a vote. All of those present, including Senators and members of the European parliament were able to vote in this contest, so the outcome was not necessarily indicative of the feelings of Dáil deputies. Still Charlie had clearly won the first round.

He got a further boost when the Tunney committee reported that there was no evidence to link him directly to the telephone-tapping. There followed a four-and-a-half hour discussion of matters relating to the Tunney report before Briscoe formally proposed his motion calling for Charlie's resignation. Briscoe had obviously done little to secure support for his motion, because he did not even have a seconder lined up. For a moment it looked as if the motion would fail for a lack of a seconder, until McCreevy filled the void. Deputies then spoke for and against the motion.

Charlie's supporters depicted their man as having been crucified by a hostile media which, they said, should not be allowed to dictate how Fianna Fáil should be run. His backers also exploited the idea that certain monied interests wanted to get rid of him. If they were allowed to have their way, this would be tantamount to admitting that Fianna Fáil was for sale.

Charlie's opponents, on the other hand, accused him of presiding over a succession of scandals which had done enormous damage to the party. He was depicted as a distinct electoral liability, and it was emphasised he had failed to secure a majority in three consecutive elections. These people and the media in general conveniently forgot that Eamon de Valera had also failed to secure such a majority in his first three general elections as party leader.

Most of those at the parliamentary party meeting on 7 February 1983 felt the media had been unfair to Charlie. His critics, both inside and outside the party, had in recent days been trying to get rid of him with almost indecent haste. They did not even want to wait for the Tunney report. All this rebounded to Charlie's advantage in securing the support of many middle-ground deputies at this critical point. People like the fighter who battles against the odds, and he seemed to be battling against enormous odds for the past several days. Even individuals who despised him were heard to express a begrudging admiration of his tenacity.

This time Charlie agreed to a secret vote. In all probability it was to his advantage, because opponents who had found their ambitions for the leadership thwarted for the present could now back him, as he was likely to be more vulnerable than a new leader. In addition, there were those who, according to one reporter, had been ‘kissing Charlie on all four cheeks in October' but had recently found it necessary to express public reservations about him. Under the cloak of secrecy they were quietly able to return to his fold.

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'.

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. Connolly. 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.