Just Mary (21 page)

Early in my tenure in the Department of Public Enterprise, in the summer months of 1997, the Mary McAleese saga began to unfold. The next Irish Presidential Election had been set for 30 October
that year, and there had been one or two vague murmurings in the press that Mary was considering running for the Presidency, but nothing definite. For us in the Fianna Fáil Party at that
time, the only person who looked to be shaping up as a possible candidate was the ex-Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds. But it was still early days.

The Saturday in question had passed for me in a flurry of clinic work: having recently been re-elected, I was particularly busy in this regard at the time. Enda was a huge help to me in my
clinic work, which I did each Saturday from home. During the week, he would have arranged by telephone those who wanted to come and he would then be there on the day itself, to show them in and
move them up the line. All of this he did on a completely voluntary basis — remember, in 1997 we were still in a more innocent era, when personal assistants and such sophistications were
relatively unknown in the lives of elected people.

Anyway, earlier that week, I had had a telephone call from Mary McAleese, asking if she could call to see me that Saturday after my clinic. Enda and I had a habit of sitting down on a Saturday
evening when the crowds were gone and having a drink and a chat together. It was a moment of relaxation, and we would then decide if we would go out to eat or have dinner at home. On this occasion,
we were mulling over such trivial matters when the doorbell rang. Enda went to answer it, and there was Mary McAleese with her husband, Martin.

I knew Mary at this time — I knew her quite well, in fact. Years ago in my early days as a
TD
— from 1982 to 1987, when Fianna Fáil were in Opposition
— Eileen Lemass and myself, with the benign approval of Charlie Haughey, had set up a women’s group for the party. We ran a series of conferences around the country, each one a big
success, and the group quickly grew in stature and in renown. Soon we had an executive group of women running the conferences from the Fianna Fáil
HQ
: there was
Eileen Lemass, myself and a number of others, including Noreen Butler, Kathryn Byrne, Betty Coffey, Sadie Jordan and, of course, Mary McAleese. Mary was spirited, talkative, determined and
knowledgeable. At that time she was living in County Meath with her husband and her very young family, which included twins. Our women’s events continued to meet with a great response, and
good friendships developed between members.

Time went on and by 1987 we were in government again. The women’s group changed as other women took centre stage, and from time to time I would hear of Mary McAleese, or I would hear from
her. She had become a very busy person: a practising barrister, a professor at Trinity College and a presenter on
RTÉ
’s
Prime Time.
And I too was
increasingly busy. So life moved on, but our paths would cross fleetingly from time to time and we kept in touch whenever we could.

On that warm mid-summer day (now fifteen years ago) when Mary and Martin called to see us, we had tea and talk and no, they wouldn’t take a drink. As has remained her wont, Mary very
quickly came to the point: she wanted to run for the Presidency and had come to ask my advice. True to form also, it soon became clear that she was very serious about this idea, and she proceeded
to tell me how she intended to set about her task — she had already some very firm ideas in that regard. Crucially, Martin was in full agreement with her. We talked and we planned and I very
quickly felt that they had a good chance of success. During the course of our conversation, I also incidentally discovered that it was Mary Leneghan (now McAleese) who was now talking with Mary
Lenihan (now O’Rourke) — a quirky and odd coincidence indeed!

Before Mary and Martin McAleese left Enda and me that evening in Athlone, I had pledged her my troth and promised her my support. She hadn’t asked me to, but it was something I wanted to
do. I felt she would be a great candidate for our party and a more than worthy successor to Mary Robinson, who had blazed a trail for Ireland in her Presidency. Of course, the whole exchange of
that evening was bittersweet for me, as I kept thinking back to the time seven years previously when I had been so involved in my brother Brian’s campaign for the Presidency, and had lived
through the highs and lows of those exhilarating months with him.

As also discussed that evening, Mary set about her strategy with intent, and next went to see Rory O’Hanlon. Then she followed through with all of the other approaches she had planned,
culminating with an early visit to the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern. Time went on and soon her bid to be the Fianna Fáil representative for the Presidency began to gain momentum. At that time
however, the sure-fire bet in our party seemed to be Albert Reynolds, who had embarked on his own separate campaign, although soon another very renowned figure within Fianna Fáil —
Michael O’ Kennedy — would declare his candidacy too. As well as Mary, there was at one point great talk of another Northern figure, John Hume being put forward — but that
dissipated quickly.

The parliamentary party meeting early that autumn was to be the decisive day for the Fianna Fáil candidate for the Presidency to be finally chosen. An amusing aside here is that three
Lenihan votes were submitted on that occasion, and that each of us would back a different candidate! Brian Lenihan voted for Michael O’Kennedy, whom he knew through the Law Library and
through legal work; Conor Lenihan voted for Albert Reynolds, who had always been a pal of his in the party; and I voted for Mary McAleese. So there was certainly not a combined vote from the
Lenihan family for anyone in particular!

The most interesting aspect of that party meeting for the vote was the role played by the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern. Earlier in the summer, Bertie had taken Albert out to lunch and reassured him
that he was going to be in his corner and that he would be supporting him all the way as the Presidential candidate. And so, Albert had gone into the vote that day, thinking that the Taoiseach was
on his side — although a part of him must surely have been aware of just how cunning and devious Bertie could be. There had been a Cabinet meeting the day before the party meeting, and after
the business part of the meeting was concluded, the Taoiseach had turned to the Cabinet Secretary to say that he wanted to talk political strategy with us. As soon as the Secretary withdrew from
the room, Bertie began to talk about the forthcoming Presidential campaign. He left us in no doubt whatsoever that Mary McAleese was the candidate we should support, and when I spoke afterwards to
fellow Cabinet members, they would confirm having had the same impression. That night, there was another meeting in Fianna Fáil
HQ
, at which the message was again
repeated, albeit in various degrees of intensity, depending upon who was being addressed.

The day of the parliamentary party meeting dawned bright and clear. I know from subsequent conversations that both Albert and Michael O’Kennedy had been told there would be no need to have
a prepared speech — that there would, in fact, be no speeches. However, as it transpired, there were, and Mary McAleese was the only person to have done any preparation. Accordingly, she
spoke fluently and very well, and left the other two far behind in her wake. At one particular point later in the meeting, and in a gesture which would go down in party folklore, Bertie Ahern held
up his voting card to Albert Reynolds to show that he had indeed voted for him. However, as many of us knew then and as all of us would know later, what Bertie held up to Albert may well have been
his
first
vote but where did his
final
vote go?

Mary McAleese won by a street and went on to be our very successful candidate in that campaign, and our President for 14 years. Obviously, when Mary McAleese became President, she represented at
that point all of the people of Ireland and not any one party — but we in Fianna Fáil were always proud of the fact that she had been chosen by our party to be the standard bearer that
autumn of 1997.

Mary’s Presidency was, as we know, hugely successful. Right through her 14 years in office, she remained buoyant, warm, thoughtful and reflective: all of the things needed in a Head of
State. Even in May 2011, each time I saw her on television with the Queen, I felt that whatever visit they were making would be a success with Mary in charge. She always exuded that reassuring air
of confidence and capability. For me, it was an unfailing pleasure to meet her at the numerous official functions where our paths would cross. Whenever we saw each other, I was always warmed
through by her enthusiasm and friendship, and she would always ask about Enda. Indeed, she would do our family the great honour of travelling down to be present in person at Enda’s funeral
when he died in late January 2001.

Back at the coalface of the Department, the next challenge up for me was Luas and how this huge public project could be advanced. Luas was to be an urban transport network for the city of
Dublin, much along the lines of those which had been set up some decades earlier in various forms in most of the other European capitals — as always in these matters, we in Ireland had been
slow to catch up. There was the
DART
, of course, which had been set up in the early 1980s and was a huge success, but since then, there had been nothing new in terms of
public transport for the city, except for more buses and even those had always been dragged unwillingly from successive Finance Ministers. Luas as an idea had been knocking around since Brian
Cowen’s time as Minister for Transport in 1993 to 1994, and when Labour crossed over and went into coalition with Fine Gael, it had become the remit of Michael Lowry and then of his
successor, Alan Dukes. Luas was a big, big project and the provision of it could draw down some much needed European funds.

When I in my turn took over the Luas portfolio, I discovered that the previous Cabinet had been very divided over the way forward. Fundamental questions still remained unanswered. Was it to be
over ground; was it to be underground; should it be a combination of both? The debate had raged internally and in the media, while resentment bubbled within
CIÉ
at
the idea of huge sums of money being pumped into an alternative transport system. At this stage, Donal Mangan was the
CIÉ
Project Director of Luas.

When I initially perused the files, it became clear that, yes, there had also been bad feeling high up in
CIÉ
decades earlier, when
DART
was mooted. So what’s new, I thought? Seán O’Connor, a young man who was in the Dublin branch of Fianna Fáil and a grand-nephew of Seán Lemass, suggested that I set
up a kind of ‘Shadow’ Committee within the Department but with my own nominees on it, who would ensure that the work was done. I thought it a very good idea and asked Pádraic
White — the then
CEO
of the Industrial Development Authority (
IDA
) — if he would chair it, and luckily he was happy to do so. This new
committee was an entirely voluntary one with no payment for those involved in it, but all of its members, who were very experienced people — like Pádraic White and Pat Mangan, the
Assistant Secretary of the Department of Transport — had huge records in the field, and took to their task with energy and enthusiasm.

Meanwhile, both at Cabinet and in the papers, the debate over the way forward for Luas grew ever louder and more declamatory. I found very quickly that when you are going to embark on a mammoth
project such as this one was, everybody is an expert — or thinks they are. Cabinet, it seemed, could be divided in three camps: those who thought it should be on the ground; those thought it
should be under the ground; and those who thought it shouldn’t go ahead at all. As for me, I kept my ears primed and my eyes open and absorbed everything I could. I knew that public
expectation was high. On one of his radio programmes at the time, Tom McGurk christened me ‘Mama Luas’!

Finally, I was ready to bring my proposal to Cabinet. The day in that summer of 1998 when the scheme for Luas — which was to be over ground — was approved and finally given the go
ahead was an exciting and very satisfying one for me and all those who had helped me along the way. At that point, the work had only just begun in real terms, as there was the funding and European
drawdown to be sought and countless other matters to be attended to, all of which made for a busy, busy time for me. The Taoiseach dug the sod for the first Luas line and Dublin was at last to get
the urban transport network which had been so long in the planning. To this day, whenever I see the Luas gliding along the streets of Dublin, I genuinely feel a sense that I was part of the history
of Irish transport.

On the home front, in 1999 Enda had a serious health scare and had to be hospitalised in the Mater in Dublin. Fortunately I was able to go to see him there frequently. He was really quite ill
but proved very resilient both physically and mentally, and was able to rally through and in time come home, under a very strict regime of rest and medication. I will be forever indebted to one of
my sisters-in-law, Maureen O’Rourke, for the help she was able to give us at this difficult time. An ex-theatre sister at Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital in Dublin and now retired, Maureen
took wonderful care of Enda when he came home. Although it had been recommended by his medical team in the Mater that he should recuperate in a nursing home for some time after his discharge from
hospital, Enda was adamant that all he wanted to do was to come home as soon as possible, and I was with him on that. After all, when you are bruised, hurt and shaken, what more do you want than to
get back to your own bed, among your own familiar surroundings? Of course, work dictated that I had to be away during the week, but Maureen moved in for two weeks and stayed overnight with Enda on
week nights until I came home each weekend. She shopped and cooked and made him exercise and take his tablets, and in general, it was as if he was in the best nursing home in the world: he had the
care of his own private nurse in his own comfortable home. The fact that Maureen was able to do this gave me much peace of mind while I was away. I was most appreciative of her efforts then and
remain very grateful for her generosity of spirit. Enda’s two other sisters, Eithne and Gertie (who has since passed away) were always so kind to me, Enda and my extended family too.