Some people have been reluctant to state what should be obvious because of an honourable Irish tradition whereby we do not speak ill of the recently deceased. Instead we show respect for their memory and sympathy towards those who are grieving. Others quieted themselves — or used cowardly euphemisms such as “controversial” and “enigmatic” in describing Haughey — for fear of taking a hit from his flying column of volunteer spin-doctors.
That is precisely why it is important to remember what Haughey did and to recognise the implications of his actions. In the absence of an honest presentation of the facts there are those who would take advantage of that vacuum to present an untrue picture of the former Fianna Fail leader.
In a campaign of rehabilitation that began years before his death, efforts have been made to embellish the undeserved myth that Haughey was a great statesman whose achievements and abilities outweighed his failures and flaws.
That is simply untrue. To let it stand would embolden others who would also seek to corrupt Irish political life, to allow those with money to wield even more disproportionate power, and to ratify the culture of preference they and other wide boys represent.
The facts are damning. Honoured with the most important of public offices, Haughey demeaned, compromised and abused it by secretly hoovering up as much cash as possible — an astonishing IR£8.5m at least — to support an extravagant and pretentious lifestyle.
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Those friends and supporters who have been most vocal in recent days would have it that this did not matter. They claim there is no proof that he did any favours in return for the money so he cannot be condemned as corrupt. But we cannot rely on this claim of innocence.
We don’t know who gave Haughey all that money, so we cannot say with certainty what he did or didn’t do on behalf of the donors. And even when we do know who gave money — Ben Dunne, for example — significant issues remain to be decided by the Moriarty tribunal. In particular, it must decide on the extent of Haughey’s interference in tax matters relating to Dunnes Stores, details which emerged only in the last year.
Even if it was the case that Haughey did nothing in return for his vast accumulation of unearned wealth, Justice Brian McCracken correctly noted in his 1997 tribunal report that Haughey was compromised by the potential for disclosure or by future requests for action. To be compromised in this manner while taoiseach is to be corrupted.
The receipt of cash on which he paid no tax was not the end of Haughey’s disgrace. He was also part of an elaborate scam — the Ansbacher accounts located in the Cayman Islands — that allowed members of an elite to evade their duties to pay their fair share of tax to the state.
When he was eventually confronted with the truth, Haughey perjured himself at a tribunal set up by the same Dail that had elected him taoiseach. He continued his lies until they were exposed conclusively and he could maintain them no longer.
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Haughey was also a thief. He stole from the state and he stole from charity. He plundered a political account operated by Fianna Fail and funded by the state, using the proceeds to pay for expensive meals at gourmet restaurants and to buy hand-tailored shirts in Paris. He raised money for a life-saving operation for his great friend Brian Lenihan, but pocketed the balance of the funds that were not used.
It could also be argued that Haughey was a coward. He claimed not to know the source of most of the donations. Implausibly, and cynically, he heaped the blame for his good fortune onto Des Traynor, his deceased bagman, expecting us to believe that money mysteriously appeared in his accounts without him knowing where it came from.
Yet Haughey dealt personally with AIB when welshing on his extraordinary debts and accepted bank drafts directly from Ben Dunne’s hand. He stopped coming to the tribunal on the grounds of ill-health years ago, making it impossible to assess if he had done anything to favour his unidentified donors.
Haughey was fortunate in that he never faced serious official punishment. Considering the amount of money he accumulated and the assets he bought, his eventual tax settlement (about €5m) was disgracefully low, even if it was arrived at legally. That sum was easily met from the surplus of the €45m raised from the sale of part of his Abbeville estate.
There was no threat of imprisonment for tax evasion or for his perjury, the latter evaporating when Mary Harney’s appropriate, if ill-timed, public comments about his scandalous behaviour apparently made a fair trial impossible.
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We must assume that Haughey was not unaffected psychologically by the exposure of his private affairs. Most discomfort was likely caused by the disclosure of private matters by Terry Keane, his former lover. He may also have suffered from the knowledge that his anticipated place in history had been changed and the thought that many citizens considered him a pariah.
He affected disdain for broadcast and print coverage that criticised him and contempt for those who said or wrote bad things about him. He never showed any real contrition for actions taken while in office or the way he dealt with subsequent inquiries. There was never any understanding that what he had done was deeply wrong or had comprised himself and his office.
He exhibited a sense of entitlement when it came to accepting money. Indeed a culture of entitlement flourished in the Fianna Fail that Haughey led. Ray Burke and Liam Lawlor might not have taken straightforward bribes while Padraig Flynn might not have trousered funds destined for the party coffers if they hadn’t felt this type of behaviour was going on at the very top. Others, at lower levels, took smaller amounts.
When the history of the period is written, it may become clear that Haughey was the country’s greatest conman. We Irish often love characters as opposed to people of character. We indulge chancers, charlatans and crooks, who entertain us with their outrageous behaviour and command of language. We allow them their faults, mysteries and myths and their patronising claims to be working and speaking on our behalf, battling an “enemy” class which, in truth, they now populate themselves. Haughey exploited that and, in turn, allowed himself to be exploited and corrupted by the rich and powerful.
Of course he had achievements. As a minister he had imagination and a determination to overcome the stifling hand of bureaucracy. He was a man of some style and charm, even if many found the public flaunting of his lifestyle — the horses, the expensive clothes and the fine dining — to be ostentatious long before it was revealed that he couldn’t even pay for these excesses himself.
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He also had the common touch, inveigling 45% of the electorate to vote for him with free bus passes for pensioners, free toothbrushes for children and freedom from taxes for artists, all funded by the public exchequer but providing him with the political benefits.
It was those talents and strengths, boasted about by his friends last week, that make the venality of his weaknesses even more apparent, the disappointment in his failed potential so much greater.
That was his personal tragedy. Much more significant is the damage he did to public confidence in the administration of politics in this country. The cynicism that marks much of the public attitude towards politics today flows from the exposure of the scandals that erupted in the Haughey era.
Regardless of the good things you have heard or read about Haughey or the efforts that have been made to minimise the damage he did, it is important to remember that the evidence against him is both overwhelming and conclusive. No other taoiseach was ever accused of abusing power and office in the manner that Haughey did. Ultimately the level of that corruption far outweighed any of his achievements. It did not die with him.