Stephen Roche, Tour de France winner There was a lot of controversy when he stood up on the podium [in Paris] with me when I won the Tour de France in 1987. It was hard to know who won, me or him. But after that I got to know him and I was very impressed by the man. I was out cycling one day and was passing his house so I thought about how he had come out to see me on the Champs-Elysee so I cycled up his driveway and the guards let me in.

Haughey adjourned a meeting and came out to see me and said, "Stephen if you can give me five minutes to finish something up it'd be great to have a drink." So five minutes later he had left everything else and we sat for an hour in the bar at the back of the house shooting the breeze.

Phil Flynn, former trade union leader He had an incredible mind and had balls to burn. The unions had discussions with the Garret FitzGerald government of the mid-1980s about a partnership agreement. Labour leader Ruairi Quinn grasped the concept, but he couldn't convince FitzGerald, who didn't believe the unions would deliver.

Haughey knew we would. He didn't suffer fools gladly. When he called, you turned up.

Kevin Duffy, Labour Court chairman Charlie Haughey wasn't involved in the negotiations of the [first partnership] agreements but pulled the strings from behind the scenes and he launched them with great pomp and ceremony. At the launch of the second national agreement in 1991, Haughey insisted everybody . . . unions, employers, ministers . . . repair for a celebration drink. Before his departure, Haughey gestured to Brian Lenihan across the packed room and said, "look after my friends in congress". He did and the celebratory drinks went on until 5am in the morning.

Fiona Gratzer, MD of Unislim In any other country, he would probably have been in prison for what he did. It was part of our psyche at the time that we were attracted to people who had a bit of badness and boldness in them. My parents were at his party when he was first elected taoiseach and they had some great story about some guy who was dressed up as a bishop and everyone was lining up telling their confessions to him. I think he was a great entertainer and people loved his company.

Jim Allister, DUP MEP They say Charlie Haughey was charming, but then so was Al Capone. He gave southern politics a bad name.

Unionists can disagree ideologically with nationalist politicians yet still acknowledge their personal positive characteristics. But in Charlie Haughey there was nothing but malevolence.

History won't judge him kindly.

Aidan Cooney, TV3 I would have been around 18 or 19 when he was coming into the peak of things in the early '80s. I remember an uncle saying to me, if he had his way, he would have taken over the country and we would have had General Haughey leading Ireland.

Brid Rodgers, former SDLP deputy leader Ifirst saw Charlie Haughey at the Bloody Sunday funerals. I'd heard so much about him, I was expecting a lot.

But here was this wee fellow with dandruff on his shoulders. Later, he reminded me of Napoleon. They were both small but with that imperious look and grand way of gesturing. Garret FitzGerald appointed me to the Seanad in 1983. I wanted to be impartial politically so I asked to meet the other two southern party leaders.

Dick Spring met me but I never even heard back from Haughey. There was huge animosity between him and Garret, and I think he just regarded me as 'Garret's girl'. His heart was in the right place regarding the North. but I was disappointed when he voted against the Anglo-Irish Agreement. I believe Haughey wanted to be the man who personally delivered on the North. He opposed the agreement because Garret negotiated it.

Claire Kilroy, author I never saw him in real life but he would be as familiar to me as my grandfather in many ways. I regard him with fondness. To me, it's the loveable rogue thing. It's better that he happened than not.

Eamonn Fallon, director of Daft. ie My mother would think he was great but, personally, I think of him as a very intelligent man, a good strategist.

Maybe the power went to his head a little bit and he used his skills in the wrong direction.

Ivana Bacik, academic and barrister I remember him as taoiseach from when I would have been in Trinity and active in student union politics. We had a lot of campaigns that targeted Haughey and his government.

"Haughey! Haughey! Haughey! Out!

Out! Out!" is one of my earliest political chants. To say that there was an awareness of corruption is probably too strong . . . it was too early to know about that or we weren't involved enough. But certainly we would have been aware that he had a lot of money and a very lavish lifestyle and there were all those rumours about his private life. But mostly it was about his politics. All of us were planning to emigrate just to get work and we blamed him for that.

Rachel Allen, chef and 'Sunday Tribune' columnist One of the first things one thinks about is the scandals, and all the Charvet shirts. I'm sure that the bad things he did were outweighed by the good things. I would say he was a bit of a rogue. Brown envelopes were flying about, but he wasn't the only one.

Sean Fleming, Fianna Fail TD He was a great taoiseach. He was a great leader of Fianna Fail. It's short and to the point but that's what he was.

Compiled by Suzanne Breen, Martin Frawley and Leonie Corcoran