THE events of last week brought to mind a Martyn Turner cartoon published in early 1992 when Charlie Haughey stepped down as taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fail. In his cartoon, Turner drew the resident of Kinsealy at his desk reading through the newspapers, which were filled with the lavish praise bestowed upon him in the Dail on his final day as head of government. "Man of vision, great parliamentarian, statesman, patriot, wit, imagination, flair, determination, man of the people, " Haughey read before asking, "You'd wonder why they were so keen to get rid of me." History will now judge the former taoiseach, and as Pat Rabbitte observed in the Dail last week, "There is a darker side to the Haughey political legacy".

That darker side was evident in a number of different guises last week as news of Haughey's death was released. The former cabinet minister, and Mountjoy inmate, Ray Burke was enjoying the cricket at Stormont. He was an anonymous figure in the crowd as Ireland lost in the oneday international with England. Burke was once a Haughey loyalist in political terms, but the evidence heard at the planning tribunal clearly showed the two men to be much closer kindred spirits. One would wonder, however, about the fairness in a system which put Burke behind bars for tax offences while Haughey and his advisers cut deals with the Revenue Commissioners.

Another Fianna Fail figure who will also long be linked with the era of corruption, Frank Dunlop, spent the week at Dublin Castle. It's now six years since Dunlop 'sang like a canary' for the first time at the tribunal and last week he was giving more insights into the workings of planning in the Dublin region. Dunlop told of "a bag of cash" that he kept to have easy access to money in order to bribe councillors. He estimated that 100,000 was given to the late Liam Lawlor to help facilitate certain planning decisions. With Lawlor and Haughey now dead, the final reports from the Flood/Mahon and Moriarty tribunals are increasingly looking like they'll be documents of serious historical interest, but with little contemporary relevance.

When is a culture not a culture?

EAMON O Cuiv, who'd come from a very different Fianna Fail tradition than that espoused by Haughey, last week made some interesting remarks about immigration.

"Integration is important but one of the things we have to avoid is [the idea] that everyone has to be the same. Cultures are not mutually exclusive, " O Cuiv said. The minister's remarks are interesting in light of the lack of a welcome given to Englishspeakers in statesubsidised Gaelteacht regions. Maybe, in the spirit of multiculturalism, O Cuiv will now look at the rules which keep housing developments in certain areas exclusively for Irishspeakers.

NOW that the Haughey funeral is over, the next step will undoubtedly be discussion about what form of memorial would best commemorate the man Bertie Ahern described in his graveside oration as "The Boss". A public statue? University scholarships? A new national holiday . . .Haughey Day? One idea, however, might be to give everyone who turns 18 an Ansbacher account with a balance befitting the late Fianna Fail leader.

Reserve judgement. . . until Tuesday

NORMAL political activity should resume this week, and Michael McDowell will have another opportunity to court controversy when he appears before the Oireachtas Justice Committee on Tuesday.

The justice minister is one of several speakers who'll be asked to discuss plans for the new garda reserve.

Representatives of the various garda bodies will also give their views to the committee. McDowell's recent announcement that an additional 1,000 members of the force could be recruited may have been a sweetener to the disgruntled representative bodies. We'll get to see on Tuesday whether or not a summer of blue flu discontent lies ahead.

These bhoys go back a long way

CONGRATULATIONS are in order to Anthony McIntrye, the former republican prisoner who runs, among other things, the Blanket website which is currently celebrating its fifth birthday. In an article in the current edition of the e-journal, McIntyre returns to the row between Danny Morrison and Richard O'Rawe over the 1981 hunger strikes. "There are some people who think Morrison has taken O'Rawe out of the game. But the last anyone saw of them was as they staggered from the bar shouting 'Celtic for the World Cup', " McIntyre writes. With legal action threatened by O'Rawe over comments made by Morrison, however, this game looks set to run for some time yet.