Small change donated from Haughey’s bottomless pit
Ryle Dwyer
ANYONE reading media reports during the week could hardly be blamed for concluding that all that Charlie Haughey contributed to Brian Lenihan’s medical expenses was £200 in cash, delivered by his driver in a brown paper bag.
That would not even buy one of Charlie’s shirts. Around the time of Lenihan’s liver transplant operation in June, 1989, a fund raising drive was launched by Fianna Fail. Much of the money was lodged in the party leader’s allowance account. In one five week period over £180,000 extra was deposited in the party leader’s account, in addition to money from the Exchequer.
There are serious questions about what happened to all the money that was collected on behalf of Brian Lenihan, but it was a gross distortion to mention the £200 without reference to the money provided from the leader’s account to pay various bills incurred by Lenihan in connection with the operation. For instance, £54,498.58 was paid to the Mayo Clinic from the account in 1989. In addition, a total of £10,007.12 was paid to the Department of Foreign Affairs in connection with expenses incurred by Lenihan.
The following March another £5,727.23 was withdrawn to pay for three further international cheques to the Mayo Clinic, a nearby hotel and a limousine service.
The following February another £12,914.50 was paid from the account to the Department of Defence "in connection with the travel arrangements" for Lenihan.
Thus, a total of more than £80,000 was paid out of the leader’s account on Lenihan’s behalf. Haughey’s £200 cash contribution might have appeared generous had not the other stories of his extravagance made the gift seem relatively flimsy in the circumstances, especially when there are so many unanswered questions about how much of the extra £180,000 deposited in the leader’s allowance account during the five week period in1989 was intended for Lenihan.
The deposit in those five weeks accounted for more than a quarter of the total extra deposits in the whole eight year period for which records are available.
Of course, it should be noted - even though the media have ignored it - that there was also a general election campaign going on, so some of that money was probably intended for Fianna Fail.
In addition to the millions given to Haughey by Ben Dunne or loaned by AIB, and the hundreds of thousands provided by Patrick Gallagher and PV Doyle, Haughey also had the use of money deposited in the party leader’s allowance account, which was held at AIB branch in Baggot Street.
From 1980 to 1983, the records of deposits in the account were destroyed along with other bank records from the period, but it has been possible to determine that between 1984 and 1991 a total of over £540,000 was deposited into the account on top of the £930,000 that was contributed by the state during those years.
Only a fraction of that money has yet been explained. £134,000 extra was deposited in the account in 1986. The Irish Permanent contributed £100,000 of that to Fianna Fail, but the same year £75,000 was transferred from the leader’s account to a separate account from which Des Traynor paid Haughey’s domestic bills. Was this a legitimate use of that money? 1989 - the year for which questions have been asked also about money given to Ray Burke and Padraig Flynn - was by far the best when it came to such outside contributions to the leader’s allowance. A total of £220,302_28 was paid into the account, in addition to the Exchequer contributions. Thus more than one third of the total extra money for the eight years was deposited that year.
How much of that was for Lenihan’s expenses and what ultimately happened to the other £20,000 contributed by the Irish Permanent Building Society that was mistakenly given to Celtic Helicopters?
In addition to Lenihan’s operation there was also the European and the general elections in June, 1989. It seemed that there was so much money flying around that they did not know where to put it.
The irony was that the general election was supposedly called because Haughey balked over the Dail’s decision to allocate £400,000 for all the haemophiliacs infectedwith the AIDS virus as a result of receiving tainted blood products. The Government was only prepared to give £250,000. But it was not really that extra £150,000 that prompted the Short Fellow to call the election. He knew that the greatest financial scandal in the history of the state was likely to erupt. Haughey and Albert Reynolds had disregarded their expert advice and provided insurance cover on beef exports to Iraq. The beef deal was turning particularly rancid in 1989, as Iraq defaulted on her payments. By mid June the Baghdad government would be £160 million in default, and the Irish Exchequer would be liable because the government had insured the exports.
At the time Haughey had only a minority government and the beef fiasco would inevitably undermine his chances of remaining in power. Haughey was anxious therefore for an excuse to call an election in order to gain an overall majority. In political terms he was enjoying his best period with some spectacular successes. In May, 1987, not long after coming to power, the level of public satisfaction with his performance as Taoiseach was at 38%, but two years later he was enjoying a 67% voter approval rating.
Some 54% of the electorate indicated a preference for Fianna Fail, which would accord the party a massive landslide victory if repeated in a general election.
Haughey was therefore looking for a credible excuse to call an election, and he used the Dail vote on the haemophiliac issue, but he miscalculated badly. For one thing, he had used the wrong issue. He had come to power lashing the previous government with the slogan "Health cuts hurt the old, the sick and the handicapped." Yet he had introduced even more savage cuts.
He had also mistimed his pique, because he was compelled by the constitution to delay the calling of the election for at least a fortnight as it would have been necessary otherwise to a hold the general election and the European elections separately within two weeks of each other. The extra expense of the two elections would have come to so much more than paying the extra money to the haemophiliacs that, politically, he had to wait, and the delay proved lethal.
Viewed in the context of the millions involved, Haughey has so many questions to answer that the episode of the £200 given to Anne Lenihan is an absurd distraction.
© The Examiner, 1999