Haughey's finest hour IN THE general election, Fianna Fail attacked the government for spending cuts, running posters declaring that "Health cuts hurt the old, the sick and the handicapped". Fine Gael had a bad election, losing 19 seats, but the PDs surprise success in getting 14 TDs elected meant that, once again, Fianna Fail fell just short of an overall majority, with Haughey needing the casting vote of the Ceann Comhairle to be elected Taoiseach in the Dail.

Yet, despite being three seats short of a majority, it proved to be Haughey's best period in office. Seven years after talking the talk on rescuing the country's finances, Haughey finally began to walk the walk.

With Ray MacSharry as finance minister and Alan Dukes' Fine Gael lending support in the Dail for tough economic policies, budget cuts were introduced in all government departments. The positive impact on the economy and public confidence was almost immediate. There is little doubt that the basis for the future Celtic Tiger was laid during the last three years of the 1980s. Haughey's other major success from that time was his backing of the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC), which despite the many sceptics, has proved a massive success.

Haughey ran his cabinets in a brutally efficient manner, in stark contrast to the all-day agonising of FitzGerald's term of office. He bluntly told ministers he was not interested in hearing their problems, only their solutions.

Coalition WHATEVER about his relationship with his ministers, Haughey's tough line on the economy was going down well with the electorate, with opinion polls continually showing Fianna Fail at 50+% in the opinion polls. In late April, 1989, Haughey returned from a trip in Japan to the news that the government was about to be defeated in a Dail vote. Lured by the prospect of an overall majority, he decided to call an election for 15 June. It was a political gamble and it backfired spectacularly. In a campaign dominated by cutbacks in health, Fianna Fail ended up losing four seats.

When the new Dail sat, it was the first time in history a nominee for Taoiseach failed to achieve a majority when a vote was taken.

In order to stay in power, Haughey now had to sacrifice one of Fianna Fail's core values . . . that it would never go into coalition. To the horror of party diehards, he did just that, agreeing a deal with the PDs, led by Des O'Malley. Haughey's absolute control of the party, which he had enjoyed since surviving the final heave against him six years earlier, started to slip from this point. If the 1989 general election was bad for Haughey, the presidential election of the following year was arguably worse. The Tanaiste, Brian Lenihan, was the Fianna Fail candidate and he looked a shoo-in early on. However, during the campaign, controversy erupted over calls made to Aras an Uachtarain in 1982 by Fianna Fail, on the night that the FG/Labour coalition collapsed, urging president Paddy Hillery not to dissolve the Dail. Lenihan gave conflicting accounts, denying on television that he had been involved in the phone calls, but saying the opposite in an interview with postgraduate student, Jim Duffy.

With the PDs demanding action, Haughey was forced to sack his old ally from the cabinet, a decision that disgusted many in Fianna Fail. Mary Robinson, who had been running an impressive campaign anyway, went on to win the election. Even at the time, it seemed clear that Haughey's time was drawing to a close. Ireland was changing dramatically. Haughey's appeal was on the wane and Robinson successfully tapped into a major mood for change.

The end of an era A SERIES of business scandals, which led to claims of a 'Golden Circle', increased the pressure on Haughey, and there was near open revolt in the party by the autumn of 1991. Haughey won a no-confidence motion put down by Sean Power, and sacked Reynolds and Flynn from his government. It later emerged that a week after this no-confidence vote, supermarket magnate Ben Dunne famously handed Haughey bank drafts worth £210,000 prompting the immortal "thanks, big fella", line from the Taoiseach.

Haughey's political victory was short-lived. In early 1992, Sean Doherty went on RTE TV's Nighthawks programme and told the nation that Haughey had known and authorised the phone tapping of the early 1980s.

Haughey denied this, but with the PDs insisting they could not stay in government with him, he signalled his intention to retire. He stood down as Taoiseach on 11 February, when he was succeeded by Albert Reynolds, and retired completely from politics at the general election the following December.

A stormy retirement IT LOOKED as if Haughey could look forward to a quiet, dignified retirement, enjoying the usual mellowing of public opinion towards departed public figures. However, the dark secret of his personal finances finally came into the public domain. The revelations about his extravagant private life . . . the £16,000 a year spent on Charvet shirts and the expensive dinners at top restaurants funded by party money . . . and the many millions he had received from various benefactors and businessmen would change the public perception of him forever. The adoration of the masses at ardfheiseanna was replaced by protesters lobbing coins at him during his appearance at the Moriarty tribunal.

His reputation was further damaged by his initial attempts at the McCracken tribunal to bluster through, suggesting that Des Traynor had handled his finances . . . that he had been too busy running the affairs of the nation to worry about such things.

While charges of a obstructing the work of that tribunal were suspended indefinitely on the grounds that he could not get a fair trial, in the court of public opinion Haughey was tried and found guilty.

Some of Haughey's advocates have suggested that history may well judge him more kindly. Certainly, it would be unfair to overlook his many achievements, not least his belated role in laying the foundations for the current prosperity.

Undoubtedly, he was a politician of enormous intelligence, imagination and vision . . . imagine what he might have done, for example, with the billions of euro in surpluses created by the exchequer in recent years. But it's also impossible not to dwell on the lost opportunity. Garret FitzGerald said Haughey had the potential to become one of the best taoisigh the country ever had. However, his preoccupation with wealth and power clouded his judgement.

What is undeniable is that in the five general elections he contested as Fianna Fail leader, Haughey won between 44% and 48% of the popular vote . . . a figure his successors have never come close to.

His flaws and strengths said more about Ireland in the second half of the 20th century than we might wish to acknowledge. There is an old Irish saying on a person's passing: "Ni bheidh a leithead aris ann".

Never does it seem more true than in the case of Charles James Haughey.