Charles Haughey, Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister), 80
Charlene
today after years of ill health, the government said. He was 80.
Haughey was elected to the Irish parliament in 1957 and went on to lead
the Fianna Fail political party and serve as prime minister four times.
He resigned from both posts in 1992 and has been in poor health since
1995, when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said in a statement that Haughey's
death ``marks the passing of an era.''
Haughey, who gained a reputation for being a political survivor in a
career that spanned a quarter of a century, was adored by some for his
charisma and he was vilified by others for a lavish lifestyle that was
partly funded by contributions from wealthy businessmen.
He was ``quick-witted, intelligent and charming,'' said Peter Murtagh,
the author of a 1983 book on Haughey that used his nickname for the
title: ``The Boss.'' ``It's a shame he didn't use those qualities well.
He hasn't left a good legacy.''
Haughey was born in Castlebar in County Mayo in the west of Ireland on
Sept. 16, 1925. His father was involved in Ireland's war of
independence against British rule in 1919-1921. Haughey, an accountant,
failed in his first attempts to win election to Ireland's parliament
before succeeding in 1957. He served as prime minister from 1979 to
1981, from March to December 1982, from 1987 until the 1989 election
and after the election to 1992.
Free Transport
He married the daughter of former Prime Minister Sean Lemass and went
on to serve as minister for justice, agriculture, health, and finance,
where he is remembered for measures such as giving free public
transport to pensioners.
Prime Minister Jack Lynch fired Haughey as finance minister in 1970
amid a scandal over his involvement in procuring weapons, which were
illegally imported for use in Northern Ireland. He was later acquitted
and went on to succeed Lynch as party leader and Ireland's prime
minister, or taoiseach, nine years later.
Opposition to Haughey from within his party spawned three leadership
challenges within one 12-month period alone. He survived them all,
though his party, founded in 1926, fractured as Des O'Malley, his main
rival, set up the Progressive Democrats.
``If I saw Mr. Haughey buried at midnight at a crossroads with a stake
driven through his heart, politically speaking, I should continue to
wear a clove of garlic around my neck, just in case,'' wrote Conor
Cruise O'Brien, a former Irish diplomat and editor of the Observer
newspaper, in 1982.
Charvet Shirts
Haughey's measured walk and penchant for Charvet shirts helped
cultivate the image of an elder statesman, a role he reveled in as he
hosted meetings with world leaders such as U.K. Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher and French President Francois Mitterrand. His followers
adopted ``Arise and Follow Charlie,'' a song about Bonnie Prince
Charlie, the Catholic claimant to the British throne in the 18th
century, as their anthem for party gatherings and elections.
Yet even then, there was skepticism about how a politician's salary
could pay for a Georgian mansion in North Dublin as well as the yacht
Celtic Mist, and an island, Innisvickalaun, off the coast of Kerry in
Ireland's southwest.
Haughey's tenure gave the Irish political lexicon the term ``GUBU,''
shorthand for ``grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented,''
the words he used to describe the events surrounding a double murder in
1982. The suspect for the killings was arrested in the house of the
attorney general at the time, Ireland's chief law officer.
Debt and Inflation
In the 1980s, Haughey's government, faced with runaway debt and
inflation, cut government spending and struck a landmark three-year
agreement with trade unions to limit wage increases. These measures
helped sow the seeds of Ireland's boom during the following decade,
said Alan McQuaid, chief economist at Bloxham Stockbrokers in Dublin.
``Combined, they laid the foundations for where we are now,'' he said.
``In the early 80s, we were heading for disaster with unemployment at
20 percent and a debt-to-GDP ratio of 129 percent.''
Haughey also backed businessman Dermot Desmond's idea of luring
overseas financial-services companies to the Irish capital, which led
to the creation of the International Financial Services Centre on a
stretch of redeveloped wasteland along the bank of the River Liffey.
The IFSC, started at the end of the 1980s, has since managed to attract
hundreds of overseas banks, insurers and fund companies, generating
hundreds of millions of euros in annual tax revenue.
Talk Show
A January 1992 appearance by Haughey's former justice minister, Sean
Doherty, on a late-night talk show brought an abrupt end to the career
of the four-time prime minister. Doherty, who took the blame a decade
earlier for the tapping of two journalists' phones, implicated Haughey,
who resigned the following month.
Eleven days after his resignation speech to lawmakers, the arrest of
Irish businessman Ben Dunne in a Florida hotel room for cocaine
possession led to events that drew attention to Haughey's finances and
overshadowed his retirement.
In a legal wrangle between Dunne and his sisters for control of the
family business, it emerged he had paid 200,000 punts ($320,000) toward
renovation of a minister's home. The government asked High Court Judge
Brian McCracken to investigate payments to politicians, a probe that
showed Dunne had also paid 1.3 million punts to Haughey, who earlier
had issued denials.
In 1997, a second tribunal, headed by High Court Judge Michael
Moriarty, found Haughey had received total payments of at least 8.5
million British pounds ($15.7 million) from various benefactors and
businessmen, including Dunne. While McCracken said there wasn't any
evidence that Haughey did favors for Dunne in return for the money, he
said it was ``unacceptable'' for Haughey to receive such contributions,
especially when his lifestyle appeared to rely on such gifts.
`You Can't Do That'
``You're the taoiseach of a country, the prime minister; you can't do
that,'' said former Fianna Fail minister David Andrews in a documentary
about Haughey broadcast on RTE in June 2005. ``Those people who are
trying to justify it are wrong. It's as simple as that.''
Not everybody agreed. Fianna Fail delegates who gathered at the party's
annual meeting in Kerry in 2005 gave Haughey a standing ovation as they
passed a motion sending best wishes to its former leader. Haughey is
survived by his wife Maureen and children Eimear, Ciaran, Conor and
Sean.
``He's always believed that history will show what he did do, the
positives,'' Haughey's daughter Eimear said in the same program. ``Now
I'm not so sure.''
--
wd42
Old Boy
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?menuID=1&subID=555
