Sir, - Maire GeogheganQuinn's latest presidential propaganda pamphlet (Irish Times, July 19th) makes interesting reading. She appears to be rewriting history by claiming that her 1991 Ard-fheis warm-up speech was not actually the rabble-rousing battle cry it seemed. In fact, she now claims, it was a thinly veiled attack on her own party leader.
However, Mrs Geoghegan-Quinn's incredible pre-emptive speech-writing ability pales into insignificance beside her extraordinary claim that, having paid only one visit to Kinsealy, she did not realise just how wealthy her leader was. Did she not notice that Abbeville was a mansion large enough to house the entire population of some villages in her own constituency? Did it escape her attention that the same mansion stood on 250 acres of prime north Co Dublin land?
She claims that the real insiders were those who spent evenings at the bar in Kinsealy, that they would have been privy to the treasure chest. How much evidence did she want? Was it not enough that Mr Haughey had a mansion, 250 acres, a stud farm, an island, a racehorse and a yacht? Apparently, that did not convince her. She never saw the crates of wine, so she didn't believe.
Charles J. Haughey claimed that his only income since 1960 was his public representative's salary. How many more public representatives did Maire Geoghegan-Quinn know who had a lifestyle befitting a millionaire? Did she never wonder to herself at Mr Haughey's ability to manage so well on so little? We can only assume she did not. But if she had known about the art collection, she might have asked a question or two.
Maire Geoghegan-Quinn and many others must ask themselves why they accepted at face value the explanation that Mr Haughey's wealth was derived from the salary of a public representative. The dogs in the street knew it wasn't, knew it couldn't have been. When people like Vincent Browne were demanding answers for years on end, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn and her colleagues weren't even asking questions.
Her rewriting of her own past is a dismal attempt at petty revenge. If she has her eye on the Park, she should stay silent about what she failed to do and leave history to the historians. - Yours, etc., BRIAN HOSFORD, Oak Avenue, Dublin 9