Parliamentary elections were imminent in Germany and I was preparing a radio profile on Kohl by talking with the former taoisigh who had had dealings with the longtime German chancellor. On the steps of the Abbeville front door, the former taoiseach eyed me cautiously. He was toying with me. "Ah, yes, " he finally replied, beckoning me to follow him.

By the time I started my career in journalism Haughey was retired from political life. He didn't do many media interviews. He was in disgrace. The McCracken tribunal had revealed dramatic evidence that confirmed he was a kept man, living a lifestyle unsustainable from his own resources. Our 1998 meeting was arranged through contacts of my then RTE colleague, Gerard Barry, who had been a longtime political editor of this newspaper. "Stick to Kohl and be on time as he's a stickler for punctuality, " I was advised.

We sat down at the long mahogany dining table in the main reception room in Abbeville. Robert Ballagh's portrait of Haughey as Fianna Fail leader in full flight at a party ardfheis was one of numerous paintings that hung on the walls of the high-ceilinged room. Haughey's energy levels increased noticeably as the conversation turned to the collapse of communism, the fall of the Berlin Wall and plans for a single European currency. He talked in majestic terms about how Kohl and himself had strutted their stuff together on the world stage.

Haughey had once been a hero. My admiration was born in the economic wasteland that was Ireland in the 1980s. After finishing my Inter Cert in 1986 I discovered that it was impossible to find even a summer job.

The incumbents . . . Garret FitzGerald and Dick Spring . . . took the blame.

There was some chink of light after 1987 when Haughey and his new government's adoption of fiscal rectitude spurred the economy onwards. 'Expansionary fiscal contraction' became a buzz phrase in economic circles. Haughey's government cut the guts out of the public purse, yet bizarrely the economy started to grow.

But that story . . . repeated again last week . . . was all too easily told. The injection of billions in EU structural funds was the real kick-starter to the nascent boom years. Haughey and his colleagues crashed and burned their way through the national finances.

They stabilised the economy but they had no Plan B. When the national house was back in order there was no project to deliver world-class public services and make Ireland the role model for how a decent society should operate. As a student of economics in the early 1990s I felt cheated. The love affair with Haughey ended.

But still, in 1998 as a young reporter to sit with him in Kinsealy was a coup.

I now understood how so many had come under his spell. I could sense the magnetism. With the interview completed I thought I was going to be shown to the front door. "We'll have tea, " Haughey said. A housekeeper duly arrived with a tray laden with china cups and a plate full of plain biscuits. I made reference to a Sean Lemass portrait on the wall. He spoke about arriving into Leinster House as a new TD in the late 1950s. There was some admiration for the former Fine Gael leader, James Dillon. I was curious about Sean McEntee, the former Fianna Fail minister and father-in-law of Haughey's political rival, Conor Cruise O'Brien. "What was McEntee like?" "He should have been in Fine Gael, " he replied dismissively. He had harsh words for many current politicians and some well-known journalists. "These are different times now. It is all about their image with their mobile phones and their hangers on, " he said. I nodded in agreement, intrigued at his indiscretion.

"You know they can even look for your family's bank accounts, " he said, moving the conversation into a new area. "A man's castle is no longer his home, " he added as I estimated that the room we sat in probably had a larger floor space than that of my recently purchased one-bed apartment. He cut a frustrated man.

His retirement years were filled with requests for information about the clandestine financial activities of his public years. The embarrassment and humiliation must have deeply hurt this proud man.

He remained at the front door as my taxi drove away on that day in September 1998. The driver couldn't believe he had a fare from Abbeville.

"Will you look at him waving, " the driver exclaimed, "he thinks he's the f**king queen of England."

Five years later I wrote to him asking to meet to talk about a biography I was writing on his former adviser Martin Mansergh. Some days later, leaving a meeting I noticed several missed calls on my mobile.

The phone rang. "Ah, the elusive Mr Rafter, " the familiar voice said.

He had aged considerably. Now as we proceeded from the front door at Abbeville he walked slowly, watching his step. One of his eyelids was partially closed. Moriarty had followed McCracken. Many more benefactors had been exposed alongside Ben Dunne. In his private office we drank tea and chatted. "Will you make any money from this book?"

he asked. "I might if it sells like a Maeve Binchy novel, " I responded. "A nice lady, I met her once, " he said before recommending from his own current reading list a trashy novel set in France.

He was an old man. Several times he asked for questions to be repeated.

He lost his train of thought more than once. But he still knew how to deliver a memorable phrase . . . asked about his involvement at the birth of the peace process in Northern Ireland he waved his hand at me, "success has many fathers". There were to be no more questions on that topic.

He sought approval over the interview material. A week later I was again in Abbeville. He had reviewed the transcript. Only one answer had been deleted. In the book his comments on Mansergh's likely success in political life were attributed to a "senior Fianna Fail figure". The harsh but brutally honest words said much about Haughey's own view of political involvement.

"I don't think he [Mansergh] was cut out for the hurly-burly of politics.

He would be unable to look you in the eye and tell a lie, and in politics you have to be able to lie and cheat. I don't think he would have made the contribution he made, if he was elected to the Dail."

As I left Abbeville in January 2002 I gave Haughey my business card.

"What would I want that for?" he asked. "Maybe if you're going to write your memoirs you might give me a call, " I said cheekily. He laughed.

"When it comes to memoirs my attitude is 'never justify, never explain'." He never did.