Charlie, the Saudi ‘gift’ and truth behind his overthrow

FOR a generation, historians were convinced that the late Charles Haughey resigned as taoiseach in 1992 because he knew about the tapping of two journalists’ phones a decade earlier. But academics didn’t know the secret and sordid backstory. It was Dermot O’Leary, a wealthy businessman and Fianna Fáil activist who died last week, that secured Charles Haughey’s signature on that letter of resignation as taoiseach.

Back in January 1992, O’Leary made Haughey an offer he couldn’t refuse: resign or face exposure for accepting corrupt payments from a Saudi billionaire.

Haughey stepped down two weeks later.

Mr O’Leary’s deal with Haughey cleared Albert Reynolds’ path to the taoiseach’s office – and guaranteed a seat in cabinet for former Labour Party maverick Dr John O’Connell.

IT WAS one of the best-kept political secrets over the past 25 years. When he left active politics, Mr O’Leary told me how he persuaded Charles Haughey to sign the crucial letter of resignation. He invited Mr Haughey to join him and Dr O’Connell in his home in Sutton, Co Dublin. The then taoiseach was told bluntly that Dr O’Connell could not guarantee that details of his (Mr Haughey’s) corrupt payments from the Saudi billionaire would remain secret.

Haughey was reminded of a £IR50,000 payment Dr O’Connell had made to him (Mr Haughey) on February 18, 1985 – the same day that Dr O’Connell (formerly of the Labour Party) joined Fianna Fáil. Mr Haughey had asked for the cheque to be made payable to ‘cash’; Dr O’Connell kept the ‘endorsed’ cheque after his bank returned it.

Dr O’Connell had made the payment on behalf of Mahmoud Fustok, a Saudi billionaire for whom Mr O’Connell acted as a bloodstock agent in Ireland. Mr Haughey subsequently arranged for Lebanese nationals associated with Mr Fustok to get Irish passports.

At Dr O’Connell’s request, Mr Haughey invited Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah to Ireland for a state visit in 1988. In return, the Crown Prince gave a gift of a diamond necklace valued at £IR250,000 to Mrs Maureen Haughey plus jewel-encrusted daggers (valued at €30,000 each) to three Fianna Fáil ministers, including Mr Haughey.

Confronted by hard evidence of his corrupt arrangements with the Saudi billionaire at the meeting in Mr O’Leary’s house, Charles Haughey signed a pre-prepared letter undertaking to resign as taoiseach; two weeks later, on February 11, 1992, he stood down.

Mr O’Leary kept a copy of Mr Haughey’s letter of resignation.

Mr O’Leary led a secret group of influential Fianna Fáilers backing Albert Reynolds’s leadership campaign but declined to tell me if he had told Mr Reynolds of Dr John O’Connell’s payment to Haughey.

When Albert Reynolds was elected taoiseach, he appointed Dr O’Connell as minister for health after sacking eight members of Haughey’s cabinet. Dr O’Connell’s appointment (he had no experience in government) was generally regarded as bizarre.

Mr Reynolds also appointed Mr O’Leary, a wealthy businessman to the board of Aer Rianta where he remained for ten years.

In addition, he gave Mr O’Leary the role of chairman of CIE, but after a change of government, the incoming Fine Gael minister Michael Lowry sacked him. Lowry said sacking Mr O’Leary was part of his campaign to clean up ‘Sicilian levels of corruption’ in Irish public life. Years later, after the Moriarty tribunal report was published, Mr O’Leary smiled, pointing out the irony of Michael Lowry accusing him of corruption.

Dermot O’Leary (71) died last Sunday after a short illness and was buried last Wednesday. SAY farewell to Ophelia and the hyperbolic reporting of it on television that one producer described as ‘storm porn’ – and then salute two mighty women: deputy head of forecasting at Met Éireann, Evelyn Cusack and the ESB’s head of corporate affairs Bernadine Maloney. These two consummate professionals kept their cool and oozed competence while chaos and confusion reigned as downgraded hurricane Ophelia did her worst. Each gave the public much-needed comfort and reassurance; both were more credible than the politicians who claimed to be in charge of everything. IF THE Taoiseach really believes in freedom in the media, he will ask the other EU heads of government to join him in confronting Malta about the assassination last week of journalist Daphne Carina Galiza. Daphne was a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (as I am) and played a role in the Panama Papers exposé, the biggest global corruption story in history.

She wrote about the endemic corruption in the Maltese government and colleagues believe she was targeted by a bomb in her car last week because of her fearless reporting of sleaze. WHEN he was asked about Fianna Fáil running a candidate in next year’s presidential election in Australia last week, President Higgins said their proposition ‘sounded quite metaphysical’.

I hit Google for a definition of metaphysics: ‘A division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental nature of reality and being and that includes ontology, cosmology, and often epistemology.’

It is not a description many Fianna Fáilers would use, but it would have made a snappy first paragraph for his old column in Hot Press magazine.