Haughey was entitled to privacy in Keane affair

For most of the 27 years that Charles Haughey and Terry Keane had a relationship, I was aware of that relationship, certainly from late 1979 onwards. During all of this time I was in journalism and at no time during this period did I ever write about that relationship.

Since Ms Keane made it clear in the Sunday Times on Sunday week last that I knew about that relationship, I have been challenged as to why did I not disclose what I knew. The arguments advanced in favour of publication start with the financial one. Clearly, Charles Haughey spent a large amount of money on Ms Keane - expensive gifts, the trips to Paris, to the Coq Hardi. This gave rise to the question of where did he get this money from, as he could not have afforded this from the salary he was earning as a public representative. There is the hypocrisy argument: that Charles Haughey was fooling the electorate by seeking votes on the pretext of being involved in a conventional marriage and, explicitly, by claiming a personal commitment to the integrity of marriage, as he did during the divorce referendum campaign of 1986.

There is the compromise argument: that by being involved in a clandestine relationship he was leaving himself open to being compromised in the exercise of his public functions by threats of the disclosure of that relationship. There is the obsessiveness argument: that if he was so obsessed with Ms Keane and his relationship with her, then he could not function properly as minister, Taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fail. There is the public interest argument - "interest" in this case being synonymous with curiosity. Why should salacious gossip be constricted to a "golden circle" of media and political insiders?

There is the judgment argument: that if his judgment was so flawed as to involve himself in a clandestine relationship at all, and particularly with someone as mercurial as Ms Keane, then his judgment generally was suspect and the public should know about that in deciding whether to elect him Taoiseach. And finally there is the character argument: that, by involving himself in a relationship of this kind, Charles Haughey was betraying a flawed character and that factor was centrally relevant to his suitability for the hugely powerful and hugely symbolic position of Taoiseach.

All of these arguments, or some variants of them, are often deployed by the media to justify massive invasions of personal privacy. All of them are bogus. And the last of them - the character argument - is insidious.

First, the money argument. Questions about Charles Haughey's financial arrangements were begging on the streets since the 1960s and most editors, journalists and politicians paid as much heed to them as they do to them as they do to the usual crop of beggars on the street. The questions about Mr Haughey's personal wealth arose entirely independently of his relationship with Ms Keane. There was/is the massive house and farm at Kinsealy, the designer clothes, the fine wines, the paintings (admittedly mainly of himself), the horses, Inishvickillane, the trips to Paris (aside from any with Ms Keane) and to the West Indies, the trips to the Coq Hardi. It was not as though the issue could not have been raised without reference to Ms Keane. It could, and it was. Ms Keane was merely an incidental - perhaps an expensive incidental - to all of that. Anyway, I did not know then, and do not know now, what he spent on her.

The hypocrisy argument is a better one, but bogus nonetheless. Charles Haughey did not seek votes by a pretence of being involved in a faithful marriage. To his credit, he left his family dimension aside when seeking votes - neither implicitly nor explicitly did he seek votes on the basis of any pretext about his marital fidelity. As for the statement in the 1986 divorce referendum about his "personal" view being that the integrity of marriage would best be protected by the absence of divorce. It was a bit much to take at the time but there were factors which made disclosure of his relationship with Ms Keane in that context unjustifiable. First, he was not then directly seeking votes either for himself or his party. Secondly, his views about divorce could be reconciled to his personal life - he was not personally seeking divorce. Thirdly, was he not entitled anyway to offer views at variance with his personal conduct - don't many of us do that as a matter of course and why should he be treated differently? Don't smokers advise others not to smoke?

Don't people who sometimes drive their cars having taken too much drink not call for tougher action against drunk driving? Should not the arguments in favour of whatever proposition is advanced stand or fall on their own merits, independently of the conduct or character of the proponent?

The compromise argument is the blackmailer's argument and has as much credibility. The obsessiveness and judgment arguments both prove too much. The obsessiveness argument proves that the most intimate of private family problems (the drug or alcohol addiction of a family member or a cancer scare concerning a family member) are proper subject for public disclosure. The judgment argument proves that all private judgments (about the choice of spouse for instance) are open sesame.

The public interest/curiosity argument is at least up-front. If the public wants it, commercial imperatives dictate that they must get it and to hell with the consequences. But why should the harm caused by this not be as much the subject of legal redress as any other kind of harm when there is no countervailing public interest (interest in the broader sense) justification?

This leaves the character argument - the insidious one. At the heart of the character argument is a particular view of private morality and a conviction that this particular view should be applied generally.

There are certain moral values which are properly the basis for public discourse - primarily they relate to how we treat each other in the public domain. These moral values are ones, which, for the most part, we all share. But there are other moral values which have no place in the public domain because we do not all share them or could not be expected to share them. And therefore an attempt to impose them on the public culture is to do violence to the rights and autonomy of those who disagree - the ban on the importation and sale of contraceptives was an instance of this.

Thus the participation of Charles Haughey in an extramarital affair was not the business of anyone but those directly involved or affected. Making it a public issue is/would have been to intrude private moral values on the public culture. The "character" argument is merely a device to impose particular moral values on society as a whole and that is not the business of politics or journalism, or should not be.