Haughey's Forty Years of Controversy (18 page)

‘I am
delighted
you mentioned that,' Charlie interjected, ‘because your particular newspaper published perhaps the falsest list of names in Irish journalism.' He emphasised
ad nauseam
that he had been selected unanimously and he complained repeatedly that media speculation about the O'Malley challenge had turned out to be just ‘so much rubbish'.

To regain power Charlie's best chance seemed to lie with securing the support of independents, who included his arms crisis colleague Neil Blaney. John O'Connell, the sitting Speaker could be neutralised by being re-appointed, which meant that all Fianna Fáil needed was the support of the newly elected Dublin Independent, Tony Gregory, who seemed to share Charlie's strong Nationalistic views. Gregory obviously held the key to power.

‘I have 78 seats, plus Blaney, and O'Connell will be Ceann Comhairle,' Charlie told Gregory on Tuesday, 23 February. ‘I need your vote to become Taoiseach. What do you want?'

Intermittent negotiations were conducted during the next two weeks. But this was not the only thing Charlie was working on. He also had approaches made to the Fine Gael deputy, Richard Burke, to see if he would be interested in being appointed Irish commissioner to the EEC. This would necessitate his resignation from the Dáil and would mean that Fianna Fáil would need one vote less to gain power. But Burke killed the speculation with a statement emphasising that there was ‘no possibility' that he would fail to vote for Garret FitzGerald for Taoiseach when the Dáil reconvened on 9 March 1982.

Having successfully staved off the O'Malley challenge, Charlie returned to the task of winning the support of Gregory. Although Charlie had never tired of expressing his admiration of his father-in-law's political acumen, he seemed curiously oblivious to the example set by Seán Lemass under comparatively similar circumstances back in 1961. Fianna Fáil lacked a majority then, but Lemass refused to deal with anyone. Before the Dáil voted on his renomination as Taoiseach, he proudly proclaimed that he had not and would not ask for support from outside Fianna Fáil. He had made no deals, but he was re-elected any way.

When Charlie went to Gregory, however, the latter came up with a long list of specific demands in matters relating to employment, housing, health and education in Dublin, especially in the inner city area. Throughout the discussions, which were held at Gregory's headquarters, Charlie seemed highly amenable. He personally agreed with most of the demands.

‘You're pushing an open door,' was his stock response.

‘It was clear he wasn't interested in the other independents,' Gregory said afterwards. ‘He believed I could accommodate him.'

FitzGerald also tried to win over Gregory with lavish promises but the Fine Gael leader was in a weaker position because, in addition to Gregory, he needed the support of the Workers' party and at least one other Independent, so he could not offer as much to Gregory. Charlie won out in this auction for power by agreeing to have £4 million allocated to employ 500 extra men in the inner city, have 3,746 new jobs created in the same area within the next three years, have Industrial Development Authority grants raised to attract new industries to the city, acquire a 27 acre port and docks site, provide government money to build 440 new houses in the inner city and another 1,600 in the rest of Dublin, have free medical cards provided for all pensioners, to have the supplementary welfare system over-hauled, increase the number of remedial teachers in the inner city, and to nationalise Clondalkin Paper Mills, if no other option could be agreed upon within three months. Those were only some of the features outlined in the agreement, which both Charlie and Gregory signed as principals. The document was then witnessed by Michael Mullen, the general secretary of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union.

‘As the Mafia say,' Charlie exclaimed on shaking hands with Gregory following the signing, ‘it is a pleasure to do business with you.'

Had Charlie held out as Seán Lemass had done in 1961, he would probably have been elected anyway, because the three Workers' party deputies voted for him. In all likelihood he did not need Gregory's vote.

Following his elections as Taoiseach, Charlie went back to Burke with his offer of the European commissionership. Burke agreed to take the appointment, but then backed off when a storm erupted within Fine Gael, only to change his mind again and accept the position. As a result he resigned from the Dáil, leaving a vacancy in the Dublin West constituency, where he had won the seat by a narrow margin over Charlie's wife's sister-in-law, Eileen Lemass.

The
Irish Times
and
Irish Press
praised Burke's appointment to the EEC, but
The Cork Examiner,
which generally adopted a rather bland, non-partisan editorial policy, came out with a blistering condemnation of Charlie's assertion that the appointment was made purely in the national interest. ‘The Taoiseach must be entirely contemptuous of the intelligence of the Irish people to insult them with this sort of hypocrisy,' the editorial contended.

The subsequent by-election was held at the height of the Falkland's War* during which the Fianna Fáil leader was accused of ‘playing the green card for all that it is worth'. But Fine Gael retained the seat. Suddenly what had been called ‘one of the most extraordinary political strokes' of Charlie's career turned sour; he had given a ‘plum job' to someone outside his party and received nothing in return.

Charlie's relations with Margaret Thatcher were already strained as a result of events following the Dublin Castle Summit of December 1980, coupled with what the British believed were Charlie's efforts to exploit the partition issue in order to paper over his serious economic difficulties at home.

The Haughey government, on the other hand, was annoyed at the extortionist tactics being employed by the British in vetoing new farm prices within the EEC in order to get Britain's budgetary contribution lowered. Things were further complicated as relations reached a new low during the international crisis over Argentina's invasion of the Falkland Islands.

When the invasion began on 2 April 1982, most Irish people did not even know where the islands were. Britain had seized them from Argentina in 1833 but now the overwhelming majority of inhabitants wished to remain British, so Britain protested against the seizure to the Security Council of the United Nations (UN), which passed Resolution 502 calling for an immediate Argentinean withdrawal.

Ireland was a member of the security council at the time, and the Irish representative voted for the resolution, but the Dublin government only reluctantly supported a British request for an EEC embargo on trade with Argentina. Charlie was personally ‘very cool' towards the proposed sanctions, but eventually went along with the other EEC countries in unanimously implementing an embargo.

Irish trade with Argentina was comparatively small anyway. In fact, the total value in 1981 amounted to little over IR£15 million. While the trade balance was in Ireland's favour, the Irish Meat Marketing Board predicted the embargo would be even more in the country's favour, because Irish beef would be able to replace imports from Argentina on the British market.

For almost three weeks there was little hint of any real dissatisfaction with the position taken by the Dublin government until Síle de Valera issued a statement to the press on 22 April criticising the handling of the crisis on the grounds that it eroded the country's supposed traditional policy of neutrality. She had lost her seat in the Dáil so her intervention was not all that significant, but Charlie had to take notice a couple of days later when Neil Blaney spoke out.

‘ We should support Argentina,' Blaney declared, ‘for both political and economic reasons – politically because of the continued British occupation of the six counties of Northern Ireland, and economically because Argentina is one of the few countries with which we have a credit trade balance.'

As Blaney was one of the independent deputies on whose support the government was dependent, there were grounds for believing that his remarks prompted Charlie to reverse his policy on the Falkland's dispute, but this was probably an over-simplification. For one thing, the Taoiseach had already got some room for manoeuvre with the resignation of Dick Burke to take up his appointment to the European commission. As a result the government needed one less vote to maintain its majority support until the by-election.

Charlie's policy change probably had more to do with his own philosophy. After all he had been reluctant to implement sanctions against Argentina in the first place.

He had reversed his policy following the sinking of the Argentinean battleship,
General Belgrano,
which went down with the loss of several hundred lives. This marked the real beginning of the Falkland's war.

The Irish government announced it would be calling on the UN security council to bring about an immediate end to hostilities and would also be seeking the withdrawal of the EEC's economic sanctions against Argentina on the grounds that those were ‘no longer appropriate '.

‘We were never very enthusiastic about the imposition of sanctions,' Charlie told a press conference on 6 May, ‘but the argument was persuasive that they could be instrumental in applying pressure to achieve the implementation of Resolution 502 and so lead to a diplomatic solution.' He was ready to accept sanctions supporting the UN resolution, but added ‘sanctions complementing military action are not acceptable to a neutral country'.

The Irish announcement was bitterly resented by the British, who saw Charlie's attitude as a blatant attempt to undermine their support within the security council and EEC. ‘It appeared that he was going out of his way to make Britain's position difficult,' said Jim Prior, the secretary for Northern Ireland.

The stand on the EEC sanctions was largely symbolic, seeing that most of the Irish imports from Argentina were trans-shipped through Britain, so the decision was unlikely to have any practical effect on trade. It was the Irish moves in the security council that provoked the wrath of the British, because no reference was made to implementing Resolution 502. If the Irish proposal were accepted, Argentinean forces would be able to remain on the Falkland Islands, pending a diplomatic settlement. Argentina would therefore undoubtedly enjoy an advantage as a result of her invasion, which was a blatant violation of her obligations under the UN charter.

Charlie made no apologies for his government's behaviour. As an elected member of the security council, Ireland had a particular responsibility to do what the country could to secure a peaceful settlement. ‘It would be easier to stay quiet and do nothing but that would be an abnegation of responsibility in this appalling situation,' he contended. ‘Undoubtedly, when there is an emotional situation over the Falklands in Britain and elsewhere there will be misunderstanding. What we must do is keep our heads, act responsibly, act as a peace-loving nation.'

The Taoiseach deplored the escalation of the war in the South Atlantic. ‘Inbuilt into any war is escalation of this sort,' he said. ‘We went along with sanctions when they were in support of diplomatic political pressure. Once it became clear that they could be seen to support military activity, we had as a neutral state, no alternative but to withdraw from the sanctions position and hope that our stand will be understood by the British government.'

What was not generally known at the time was that the British had sunk the
General Belgrano
even though it was well outside the exclusion zone proclaimed by Britain and had been moving further away for some hours. The sinking was apparently a deliberate attempt to provoke the actual war.

While the Irish media was generally supportive of the Dublin government's stance, it did report some strong criticism from abroad. The British prime minister was reported to be furious with Charlie. ‘If he was to turn up tomorrow with a silver coffee pot,' one British government source said, ‘she'd likely crown him with it.'

Gerry Fitt was even more forthright in his condemnation of the Dublin government. ‘The bellicose and belligerent statements emanating from the extremely anti-British government are not representative of the Irish people,' he said. British forces were already gaining the upperhand in the Falklands, with the result that the Irish cease fire request at the security council was regarded as most unhelpful by the British. ‘It is not seen as humanitarian,' Fitt continued, ‘but as an attempt to help the Argentineans and stop the British now they are on the islands. Ireland is not seen as neutral but as having come down in favour of the Argentineans.'

In the midst of the chauvinistic fervour that swept Britain there was a considerable wave of anti-Irish sentiment and some virulent anti-Irish propaganda. ‘It is tempting to yearn for a return of the Vikings to plunder Ireland's coastal area and rape her nuns so that we, too, can have an opportunity to declare high-minded neutrality and demand a diplomatic solution,' Auberon Waugh wrote in the
Sunday Telegraph.

The Argentinean regime, which was a military dictatorship that seized power from a democratically elected government in the mid 1970s, had been particularly tyrannical and had shown scant regard for human rights, with the result that it had little international support. Charlie was was accused of ‘playing the green card for all that it is worth' in an attempt to win the Dublin West by-election to fill the seat vacated by Burke.

If this was his aim, then he must have been sorely disappointed because the Fine Gael candidate won with a couple of thousand votes to spare.

‘Strokes and deals have surely had their day,' Vincent Jennings, the editor of the
Sunday Press
declared. His signed editorial, coming in a newspaper that had traditionally been seen as a Fianna Fáil organ, was almost like
Osservatore Romano
criticising the pope. The editorial may well have provided the impetus for George Colley to make a particularly forceful denunciation of what he described as ‘a new style of politics and politicians' the following weekend. ‘The idea seems to be spreading that in politics success is all important no matter how achieved, that any deal or “stroke” or promise is justified if it results in the achievement or the retention of power,' he contended. ‘This is, of course, not so, and I think it is time the whole idea was challenged.' His outburst was reminiscent of his remarks about ‘low standards in high places' a decade and a half earlier, and just as he did on that occasion he rather disingenuously denied that he was referring to Charlie.