There was no work and few educational opportunities for ordinary people in an Ireland that offered no future.

The Haughey kids were not normal. The late 18th-century Abbeville mansion and its 270 acres of prime land was the centre of their universe.

When Charlie Haughey bought Abbeville in 1969 after selling his 40-acre farm in Raheny to a developer, the ambitious minister for finance had bought his equivalent of the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port on Cape Cod. It was an idyllic place for Conor, Ciar�?n, Se�?n and Eimear to grow up, a house that exuded the home of landed gentry.

Haughey's eldest child, Eimear Mulhern, who lived in Abbeville from the age of 15, said last year that she felt her father had accepted money from rich men like Ben Dunne so that he could give his family the "extra luxuries" in life. She claimed that she believed her father deserved dubious cash donations as he worked "very hard" on behalf of the country.

At a time when Haughey told the Irish people that we were "living beyond our means", with many Irish parents struggling to provide for their children, the Haughey children were getting horses and riding lessons from their father.

The Haughey children apparently do not have any problem with the greed that fuelled their father's corrupt secret payments, as they described last week's Moriarty tribunal findings as "unfounded" and "perverse".

In previous attempts to justify their father's shady deals, they have cited Haughey's poverty as a child as the catalyst for his dubious wealth creation.

"There is something in his make-up that said he didn't want to experience poverty again, " Conor Haughey said. "I would certainly think that his desire to have a good life is based on the poverty of his childhood."

Se�?n Haughey, the newlyappointed government junior minister, concurred with his brother and said: "All of us thought it was as a result of very shrewd investment in property and shares. I don't think money cost him a thought."

Eimear Haughey has also poured cold water on claims that she and her siblings benefited directly from any of her father's financial wrongdoings.

"He chose to go into politics, " she said. "The salary at the time was pretty small. I think that people saw that he was doing the job for the country that needed to be done to get the economy right. So the people gave it with a whole heart. I don't think that there is anything wrong with that."

In August 2001, a special unit of the Revenue Commissioners dealing exclusively with Haughey requested an updated statement of affairs from Haughey to assess his tax liabilities.

After a protracted series of meetings between Revenue officials and Haughey's accountants, the former taoiseach finally made a settlement of just under Euro5m.

In 2003, Haughey sold his Kinsealy estate to Manor Park homes for Euro45m and divided the proceeds of the sale between himself and his four children after using some of the money to settle his mounting tax liabilities and legal bills.

The Haughey children are all directors of a company called Larchfield Securities, which holds Haughey's assets including his Celtic Mist yacht, his private island, Inishvickillane, and the estimated Euro7.5m received by each of the children from the sale of Kinsealy.

It is difficult to dispute that Larchfield Securities, which does not file any accounts, holds some of the proceeds of Haughey's clandestine financial deals.

They may still have collectively to jump a Beecher's Brook-style fence along the Moriarty race track- their liability to pay tribunal costs.

A senior legal source told the Sunday Tribune: "I think that Haughey will be made liable to pay costs by the state. He was at the tribunal a lot and the tribunal took up a lot of time with him when he was there and over the whole issue of him being too sick to give evidence.

"The tribunal's findings were that he didn't fully co-operate with it and I would expect that the tribunal will now award costs against him. The fact that he has passed away is irrelevant as his estate continues and will have to bear any liabilities made against it."

The Haughey children may yet have to relinquish part of the silver spoon that fed them for so long.