Suspicious minds ran riot when Haughey couldn’t deliver budget

The Haughey family statement asserting that the former Taoiseach, when Minister for Finance in 1970, fell from his horse when a drainpipe he grabbed while dismounting broke and struck him is not how The Irish Times reported the incident at the time.

“Haughey concussed when hit by beam”, was the front page headline on April 23rd 1970. The report, which was placed in the first column on the left hand side of the page and positioned at the top of th page beside the main report – “Budget puts a little on almost everything” – repeated much of what had been said the previous day in the Dáil.

At the time, Charles Haughey was Minister for Finance in a single party, Fianna Fáil government led by the popular Cork TD and former hurling star, Jack Lynch. Haughey was then just 45 years old and very much a rising star within Fianna Fail. He was the poster-boy of the new generation of politicians who, unencumbered by participation in the War of Independence, were seen as "can do" men who would solve the country's problems in a pragmatic way.

In the wake of the grey decade of the 1950s, they were the embodiment of the optimism, effervescence and colour of the 1960s.

That said, however, the Finance Minister evoked strong reactions from people – both loyal zealots and critics. His ostentatious lifestyle was at odds with the frugality of Lynch, Lynch’s predecessor Sean Lemass, and the almost ascetic lifestyle of the party founder Eamon De Valera. Whereas Lynch lived in a modest, albeit period house in Rathgar, and Lemass (Haughey’s father-in-law) resided a bungalow in Churchtown, Haughey lived in a Gandon mansion near Malahide, with parkland and stables.

He loved horse riding and fine dining; his was the life of a country squire. It was stated so often among political gossipers that Haughey was also a womaniser that the assertion was assumed to be true, though it was never said openly, much less reported in media.

Haughey had survived a serious car crash in September 1968 when his vehicle hit a wall near Arklow in Co Wicklow while he was campaigning for the, ultimately rejected, referendum to reform the proportional representation system of elections. He sustained injuries to his ribs, left knee and developed a potentially life-threatening embolism, or blood clot.

But his survival added somewhat to his allure. In April 1970, there had yet to emerge the great controversies of Haughey's life, including the Arms Crisis, in which Lynch sacked him and he was tried, and acquitted, accused of conspiring to import guns for use in the growing conflict in Northern Ireland.

Nonetheless, on the morning of April 22nd when it was revealed that Haughey would not be able to deliver his own budget, suspicious minds ran riot. But no evidence emerged to challenge the official version of events.

In the Dáil, Jack Lynch rose to answer a question from the Ceann Comhairle and said the following: "Before answering the first question I should like to inform you, Sir, and the House, that before leaving his home this morning the Minister for Finance met with an accident which has resulted in concussion. He is now in hospital and has been ordered to remain under medical observation for some days. Therefore, I will introduce the Financial Statement myself."

The leader of Fine Gael, Liam Cosgrave, expressed “regret” and said: “We hope he will be all right shortly. We fully understand the situation”.

Jim Tully, speaking for the Labour Party, expressed similar sentiments but added a little dig: “He would have required sympathy today and it is just too bad that he does require it for another reason.”

Following Question Time, Lynch duly delivered Haughey’s Budget speech.

The following day, The Irish Times' report on Haughey was overshadowed, not surprisingly, with the details of the Budget rather than the state of the man who did not deliver it. The Haughey report said he was absent from the Dail "after the accident yesterday morning which prevented him from delivering the Budget."

The report continued: “Mr Haughey is suffering from concussion after being struck on the head by a beam. A hospital spokesman said he would probably be in hospital for a week. The accident happened after Mr Haughey had been out riding. While dismounting from his horse at his home, he hit against a beam which fell on him.”

The report then repeated what Lynch had told the Dáil.

The following day, Friday, April 24th 1970, the newspaper placed a two paragraph report below the half way point on the front page stating that a spokesman for the Mater Hospital described Haughey as “quite comfortable” and that he was recovering from “injuries received in an accident at his home”. A spokesman for the Department of Finance, said the injuries “not serious” but he did not know when the Minister would return to work.

The Haughey family statement on Sunday, in response to a reported claim by the former secretary of the department, Dr TK Whitaker, that Haughey was in hospital because he was beaten with an iron bar while in a pub on the morning of the budget reasserts the more prosaic explanation of events which was given at the time. The only difference is between a beam or a drainpipe hitting Haughey on the head.

“On the morning in question,” said the family statement, “Mr Haughey was returning to the stables in Abbeville [the Haughey family home near Malahide] on his horse. He grabbed an overhead drainpipe to dismount from the horse and it reared up and jumped forward when the pipe broke. Mr Haughey fell from the horse and became unconscious.”

While the drainpipe explanation did not form part of Lynch's comments, it was stated by many in Fianna Fáil at the time. Today's hasty clarification by the publishers of T.K. Whitaker: Portrait Of A Patriot by Anne Chambers, while admitting their own error, begins by criticising others, saying "the author and publishers. . . regret that a quotation in the book regarding the late former Taoiseach Charles Haughey has been reported in the media".

That aside, it appears that a quote in the book, which the author attributed to Whitaker, was in fact lifted from an earlier volume, Jack Lynch: A Biography by Professor Dermot Keogh. A statement by Gill Hess public relations states: "The quotation taken from the text of the book, which was attributed to Dr Whitaker, was in fact a direct quotation from Jack Lynch: A Biography by Professor Dermot Keogh. The author and publishers wish to clarify that due to a reference error in the end notes the words were incorrectly attributed to Dr. Whitaker. The reference will be amended accordingly in future editions of the book."

A fitting codicil, perhaps, for the opaque story of the drainpipe and the Minister. But in the Spring of 1970, all talk of what happened, and what was claimed to have happened, was overtaken by truly extraordinary events in early May.

On May 6th, Haughey was sacked by Lynch when he refused to resign in the face of accusations of his involvement in a conspiracy to channel public money to elements in Northern Ireland, via the Red Cross, to buy guns for the growing conflict there.

The Taoiseach confronted Haughey in hospital and asked for an explanation for his alleged involvement in a conspiracy to import arms (the information having come to Lynch from Cosgrave). Haughey asked for time to consider how to answer; Lynch eventually sacking him.

In the subsequent trial, Haughey, tried with others including former cabinet colleague Neil Blaney, an Army intelligence officer Capt James Kelly, and a shadowy Belgian arms dealer, Albert Luykx, denied any knowledge. His erstwhile cabinet colleague, Jim Gibbons, gave evidence, ultimately rejected, that he knew everything – as did Lynch and other ministers, according to Gibbons.

In October 1970, all the accused were acquitted after a second trial (the first collapsed) and Haughey became something of a non-person in Fianna Fáil until 1977 when Lynch, bouyed by a 20 seat majority after a general election, felt obliged to rehabilitate him.

* Peter Murtagh is co-author with Joe Joyce of The Boss, a book on the life of Charles Haughey and his notorious 1982 government.