Haughey's Forty Years of Controversy by T. Ryle Dwyer Read Free Book Online

backed Lynch in the end, Charlie was rewarded with a prestigious promotion to what was generally seen as the second most powerful post in the government. He was appointed Minister for Finance.

‘L OW S TANDARDS IN H IGH P LACES’
    Charlie was an innovative Minister for Finance. Each of his budget addresses incorporated popular giveaways, which reduced the opposition to impotent frustration. Richie Ryan of Fine Gael described the various concessions as a ‘payment of conscience money’.
    â€˜You are a reflection on the dignity of this house,’ Charlie snapped. ‘You are only a gutty.’
    â€˜Our people will get the government they voted for,’ James Dillon declared. ‘If it is Animal Farm they want, they should vote for Fianna Fáil, but if it is democracy and decency they want, I suggest they will have to look elsewhere. I think the acceptance of corruption as the norm in public life is shocking.’
    â€˜Is it not another form of corruption to take people’s character away, to spread false rumours about them?’ Charlie asked. Fine Gael was vilifying and slandering him with malicious rumours, he said. ‘That is all you are good for, the lot of you.’
    On the night of 20 September 1968 he was seriously injured in a car accident in Co. Wicklow while driving home following an election rally. The circumstances of the crash were never explained publicly, but it was widely believed in political, garda and media circles that Haughey was driving at his own insistence. As Charlie was seriously injured, the opposition did not press the matter on this occasion. Thereafter, however, ministerial drivers were ordered not to allow anyone to drive their cars, even their respective ministers.
    Haughey recovered in time to be appointed national director of elections for the general election of June 1969. This time he was the subject of some particularly strong opposition criticism in relation both to his own finances and his fundraising tactics for the party.
    Fianna Fáil had been adopting American methods. Charlie had helped to draw up the blueprint for Taca , a support group made up mostly of businessmen who were invited to join at £100 a year. The money was deposited in a bank until election time, and the interest was used to fund lavish dinners at which members of Taca could mix with cabinet ministers.
    Taca was ‘a fairly innocent concept,’ according to Charlie. ‘In so far as it had any particular motivation it was to make the party independent of big business and try to spread the level of financial support right across a much wider spectrum of the community.’ Some members had previously been subscribing ‘substantially more’ to the party at election times than the £500 that would accumulate in Taca subscriptions, if the Dáil ran its full five-year term, he contended.
    Although Charlie was the politician most associated with Taca in the public mind, the idea had come from somebody else and he had no control over the funds, but he embraced the scheme with enthusiasm and organised the first dinner – a particularly lavish affair attended by the whole cabinet. ‘We were all organised by Haughey and sent to different tables around the room,’ Kevin Boland recalled. ‘The extraordinary thing about my table was that everybody at it was in somehow or other connected with the construction industry.’
    Opposition deputies promptly questioned the propriety of such fraternisation between the property developers and members of the government. In particular, there were questions about the selection of property being rented by government departments and agencies as they mushroomed in the midst of the unprecedented economic growth.
    Boland insisted that he ‘never did a thing’ within his department for any member of Taca , but he admitted that other ministers might have been ‘susceptible’. A cloud of suspicion was