John O’connell
Self-made millionaire and former health minister who went on to end the career of Charles Haughey, writes Liam Collins
DR John O'Connell, who died on Friday at the age of 86, is credited by political insiders as the man who effectively ended the political career of Charles Haughey.
Dr O'Connell knew, through his business contacts, that Mr Haughey had organised passports for a rich Arab and his family and been paid in return.
Although he was a longtime confidant of the Fianna Fail Taoiseach, the information was circulated among an influential group of businessmen and politicians.
Mr Haughey, fearful that he would be engulfed in a financial scandal that might lead to revelations about the millions he had accumulated from powerful business figures, used the opportunity provided by the Sean Doherty Nighthawk programme on phone tapping to step down and avoid a bribery scandal.
As it happened, businessman Ben Dunne's erratic behaviour in an Orlando hotel, which led to the McCracken tribunal, finally opened the floodgates on Mr Haughey's finances some years later.
O'Connell, a Labour Party and Fianna Fail TD, Ceann Comhairle of the Dail on two occasions and health minister, was one of the most colourful politicians of his era.
In 1972, after an approach by the IRA Army Council, he organised a bizarre and clandestine meeting at his Dublin home on the North Circular Road between British Labour Party leader Harold Wilson, his Northern Ireland spokesman Merlyn Rees and IRA leaders Daithi O'Connell and Joe Cahill in an attempt to arrange an IRA ceasefire.
It was an event that commentators said left his party leader Brendan Corish and superiors in the Labour Party “frothing at the mouth” with annoyance, believing he was helping the IRA to “bomb their way to the peace talks table”.
But O'Connell, who had strong nationalist sympathies and a passionate interest in solving ‘ The Troubles', subsequently flew by private plane with four members of the IRA Army Council for further talks at Wilson's home, in a bid to arrange a ceasefire.
He also badgered Ian Paisley and the powerful Cardinal William Conway and the Papal Nuncio Alibrandi in his bid for a peace settlement.
According to one story, during a heated exchange Cardinal Conway reminded him “I am a prince of the church”, to which O'Connell replied “ah we're all equal in the sight of God”. Conway stalked out of the meeting refusing to shake his hand.
O'Connell, born into poverty, became a multi-millionaire through politics and the sale of his publishing business The Irish Medical Times, and ended up as part owner of the palatial country pile Woodtown House near Strad- bally in Co Waterford, once the home of Lord Beresford.
Born in The Liberties in Dublin in 1927, O’Connell was one of six children of a disabled British Army veteran who had fought in India and World War One. Although he lived in Drumcondra, his devout Catholic mother persuaded the Christian Brothers in Glasnevin to allow him attend school at St Vincent's Orphanage, provided he came consistently first in his class, which he did.
He put himself through the College of Surgeons and worked in the United States before coming back to Ireland to open a medical practice on the South Circular Road.
He joined the Labour Party in 1959 and was elected a TD for Dublin South West in the ‘crimson tide' of 1965. But unlike Conor Cruise O'Brien, Justine Keating and David Thornley, he wasn't destined for office. Instead he was a consummate constituency ‘Mr Fixit', who became gradually disillusioned with the party until he eventually became what was described as “a hate figure” within Labour.
In the meantime, he founded the Irish Medical Times in 1969, which led to a lucrative business career.
His colleague in the Labour Party, Barry Desmond, said he found O'Connell “utterly impossible to work with, despite strands of common political radicalism”, and O’Connell would later go on to vote with Fianna Fail against Desmond's Family Planning Bill, although he had previously advocated the sale of the contraceptives it legalised.
He eventually left the Labour Party in 1981 and ran as an independent, serving two terms as Ceann Comhairle during the electoral struggle between Haughey's Fianna Fail and the FitzGerald-led coalitions with Labour Party.
He joined Fianna Fail in 1986, described by his mentor and friend Charlie Haughey as “a man of formidable intellect, style and competence”. In return, he described his new leader as “a much maligned man”.
During one of the famous ‘heaves' in the Haughey/ O'Malley power struggle, Haughey rang him to solicit his support.
After he got it and a bit of general chit chat, O'Connell said to Haughey: “Charlie, there's more to life than being leader of Fianna Fail”, to which Haughey replied coldly, “there's not”.
He lost his Dail seat in 1987 after 22 years to Fianna Fail ‘Liberty Belle' Mary Mooney, but was appointed a senator.
In 1979, he was elected an MEP for Dublin, joining his old friend Ian Paisley in the European Parliament and later re-elected to the Dail in 1989. As a reward for his - services he achieved his long-held ambition to become health minister when Albert Reynolds sacked eight of the existing Fianna Fail cabinet and put him in high office for the first time.
Always controversial, he became embroiled in a very public row with the eminent heart surgeon Maurice Neligan when he declared that heart bypass surgery was largely a waste of money and cheaper medical treatment with drugs was just as effective.
However, after a row with Dessie O'Malley over the Beef tribunal report an election was called and O'Connell was not included in the Fianna Fail/Labour coalition that followed. He quit the Dail and left public life, living quietly since.
His removal to Donnybrook Church takes place at 5pm tomorrow and he will be buried after 10am Mass on Tuesday in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.