Just Mary (17 page)

All at once, political turmoil was unleashed, in relation to events which dated back to more than a decade earlier, and would in turn lead to a debacle which was the undoing of Charlie Haughey.
The late Seán Doherty
TD
had been Minister for Justice under Haughey in the early 1980s, and it was he who had taken the rap for a scandal which had emerged over the
nefarious practice of phone-tapping, when phones belonging to Geraldine Kennedy (later to be a
PD
deputy and then Editor of
The Irish Times
) and political writer
Bruce Arnold had been tapped. There had been huge uproar about it all at that stage, with Garda investigations and so on. There the matter had rested until now, in early 1992, when Seán
Doherty appeared on a late-night
TV
programme during which he said that, although at the time he had insisted that Haughey had known nothing about his actions, it had been
the Taoiseach himself who had ordered him to tap the phones. Charlie was adamant in his denial. Yet again, uproar ensued and our leader was left with no choice but to resign, paving the way for
Albert Reynolds and his cohorts to come onto the political scene.

In the wake of Charlie’s departure, several of us put forward our names for the leadership, but in a half-hearted way only. There was never any real debate as to who should be the next
leader: there was only to be acceptance of this wonderful person who had already come along. We had
had
Charlie and now we
were having
Albert; later on, we
would have
Bertie and after Bertie, we
were to have
Brian Cowen. I think the party has most definitely been too loyal to the leaders who were ushered in. Of course, in organisations that have
hierarchies, you have to have a sense of loyalty, but in ours, in terms of the next-in-line, it always seemed that it was loyalty
über alles
.

And so, even though in February 1992, there was a too easy assumption within Fianna Fáil as to who would be the next leader and it was all laid out that Albert Reynolds was to be
Charlie’s successor, I threw my hat into the ring anyway, as did Michael Woods. I suppose from my point of view, it was partly because I thought there should be a woman in the race for the
party leadership. It was such a male-dominated environment then, as in many ways it still is — Fianna Fáil was male, male, male! There was a lot of sexism, of which I certainly faced
my fair share over the years: ‘Didn’t you do well to get here?’; ‘You should know your place!’ and so on. But my bid for the leadership was never really very serious:
I didn’t go all out, lobbying people for support or anything. Apart from the fact that I knew Albert had it sewn up anyway, I felt strongly that, in the end, Charlie had been treated
shabbily. Beyond this, I knew deep down that I wouldn’t have liked to have been leader — I would never have had the heart for it. Which is just as well, because in the end both Michael
Woods and I got miserable votes: I got six and Michael got ten. It was kind of a non-event, as I had very much anticipated. It would later come to light that, during the two weeks when leadership
bids — such as they were — were being accepted, Bertie Ahern too had flirted strongly with the idea of putting himself forward. But he quickly realised that at that stage, the
parliamentary party was bound hand and foot to Albert Reynolds and had no notion of being driven off course.

So the Dáil approved of Albert Reynolds and he duly assumed the role of Taoiseach as expected. Then followed the notorious ‘St Valentine’s Day Massacre’, as it would
become known in party circles, when Albert proceeded to axe Chief Whip Dermot Ahern, eight Ministers — Gerry Collins, Michael O’Kennedy, Ray Burke, Noel Davern, Rory O’Hanlon,
Brendan Daly, Vincent Brady and myself — and ten Ministers of State. Looking back on it now, it was almost comical, the way we were all ordered to line up outside Albert’s office, so
that we would be called in one by one to be told our fate.

My own encounter with the new Taoiseach that day still comes so vividly to mind. Albert was standing by his desk, on which was sitting a tray with tea and sandwiches. He was eating the
sandwiches because it was all very rushed and he was expected to appear in the Dáil shortly after. I was the last to see him, and it seemed that each Minister who had been in before me had
just accepted their fate and bowed out without protest. Now that it was my turn, however, that bold streak in me which comes out from time to time suddenly surfaced again.

‘Why are you sacking me?’ I said. ‘I
demand
to know the reason why I am getting the sack! Did I not do my job properly? What did I not do right? I’m entitled to
know under labour law!’ Now, this last part wasn’t true, but I was livid and I continued to push for an explanation. Albert started to expostulate and argue with me and, as he did, bits
of the sandwich he was eating flew all around the room. I couldn’t help it, but at that, a small part of me enjoyed an inner smile and I thought to myself, ‘Ah, you never heeded your
mother’s lesson, that you shouldn’t talk with your mouth full!’ I know it sounds caustic now, but it was funny at the time.

Also comical in retrospect was how, at a certain point in the proceedings, history began to repeat itself. As Albert remonstrated — spitting his sandwich around him all the while —
he suddenly blurted out, ‘Well, would you like to be Minister for Women’s Affairs?’ Clearly there was some civil servant in an advisory capacity still floating around, who wanted
me to be Minister for Women’s Affairs!

‘No, thank you,’ I said. ‘I refused it in ’87 and I am refusing it now!’ And with that, I flounced out of the room. I know ‘flouncing’ is one of those
words always associated with women, but that is exactly what I did!

It was funny too, when, later on, after Albert had finished with us, all of us — the massacred ones — had to file into Dáil Éireann — one by one, in a long line
— just before the new Taoiseach walked in with his new gang. Among them was Bertie Ahern, who was to be Minister for Finance, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn as Minister for Justice and, as was
loudly proclaimed beforehand, Dr John O’Connell as Minister for Health. Later that evening, I met up with Enda, who was up in Dublin to be with me for what we knew was going to be a difficult
time. We went out for dinner and commiserations with a few friends, and then Enda drove home to Athlone, while I had to go back to my rented flat in Dublin. After a few stiff gins, I cried into my
duvet cover for quite a considerable time.

I was awoken the next morning by my telephone ringing. It was Dr Martin Mansergh — who had been invited by Albert Reynolds to stay on as his advisor on the North — saying that the
Taoiseach was going to telephone me later that morning. It appeared there had been a huge flood of telephone calls into Albert’s office since the day before, protesting about me being flung
out with the rest of them, and demanding that I be reinstated in a decent government job. Later that morning, I did indeed receive a call from Albert’s office. I was asked to come over and
meet him, which I did.

So, for the second time within that 24 hours, I was in front of the Taoiseach. ‘Look, you refused Women’s Affairs,’ he said, ‘what about Junior Minister in the Department
of Industry and Commerce — Des O’Malley will be your Senior Minister?’ I thought that sounded interesting and so I agreed, and left his office somewhat pacified. Later that day I
went over to meet Des O’Malley, who said, ‘Look Mary, I know this isn’t pleasant for you, so I am going to give you free rein. You will have your own office space in a separate
office block quite near the Dáil and I will be asking you to take on the business of Consumer Affairs. There is a major piece of legislation, the Consumer Credit Bill, which has to be put
together and brought through the Dáil, and I want you to take charge of that.’ I have always had an interest in consumer matters and what he was offering was something useful I felt I
could do well. So I accepted at once and I went off to my office, mollified and happy. Now, as we know, a Minister of State’s position is not the same as being in Cabinet, and that was a blow
to me, of course. I do take these things to heart, but I was quite lucky in this instance because I came back from it and recovered pretty quickly.

That afternoon, Albert had a press conference at which he said that he would have two main aims during his time in office. One would be to achieve lasting peace in the North, and the second
would be to bring about economic recovery in Ireland. To give credit where credit is due, Albert really worked at the North. He made it his own; he went where nobody else would go; he met people
nobody else would meet. I really feel that under his time as Taoiseach, matters in the North began to move at last, and in a very positive direction. And, of course, I never had any lasting
animosity towards him. Why would I? He was my boss: he gave me a job, and I worked hard at it. I brought the Consumer Credit Bill to the Dáil and Des O’Malley was great to work for. He
appreciated my situation and gave me free rein. All in all, I was to enjoy that brief sojourn as Minister for Consumer Affairs in the government of Albert Reynolds and the Progressive
Democrats.

Chapter
9

I
nitially Albert Reynolds was very popular as Taoiseach and the new leader of the party, and internally, people responded well to what was a much
more open style of leadership than heretofore. But then, very early on in his tenure, the curse of the knotty and difficult issue of abortion struck, in the form of a very high-profile and
controversial court case, and Albert was left floundering in an awful mess which was not at all of his own making.

The ‘X case’ of 1992 (
Attorney General v. X
), which had become the subject of a major public controversy, concerned a 14-year-old girl who had become pregnant as a result of
being raped by a neighbour and wished to leave the country in order to have an abortion — something which is illegal in Ireland, except in very specific, legally defined situations. The
girl’s predicament had rendered her a significant suicide threat. The then
AG
, Harry Whelehan, took a stance on the matter, seeking an injunction to prevent the girl
from having the procedure carried out. It looked like there was going to be a stand-off. An appeal to the courts ultimately led to the girl receiving permission to travel, but all in all, it was a
very fraught time. There were many
TV
and newspaper interviews, in which Albert Reynolds increasingly called on me to participate.

My position then regarding abortion, which remains the same today, is that once there has been a conception, well then, there is a life and there is another person involved. The decision to
abort that life is not something that can be taken as lightly as the ‘pro-choice’ people seem to think. Pro-choice for what, anyway? Of course the real crux of the dilemma lies in the
question: when does life begin? Do you consider this to be the moment that conception has occurred, or is it 10 or 12 days later, when the impregnated egg clings to the wall of the womb, or is it
at a specific phase in the development of the foetus? This issue poses a conundrum to this day and was to come forward quite a few years later in my career — in 2002, when Micheál
Martin was Minister for Health and I was also in the Cabinet and he attempted to put forward to the people a further constitutional amendment, which among other things would have removed the threat
of suicide as a grounds for legal abortion where the health of the mother was at risk (but which was decided against in a referendum at that stage).

Finally, we were able to put the dilemma of the ‘X case’ behind us, but it was not long before the next difficulty for Reynolds presented itself. In autumn 1992 the Beef Tribunal
— a public investigation which had been set up to look into allegations of widespread fraud and other irregularities in our meat industry at the time — started to gather its main
witnesses to give testimony. One of these was Des O’Malley and another was Albert Reynolds, who had been Minister for Industry and Commerce during part of the period under scrutiny. In 1992,
O’Malley was the Minister for Industry and Commerce and he gave evidence about certain information he said he had found in various documents in the Departmental records. When Albert took the
stand, he said O’Malley had told untruths and, predictably, all hell broke loose. Albert refused to apologise for his remarks and things reached breaking point. There is no need for me to go
into great detail concerning matters which have been so successfully dealt with in other autobiographies — suffice it to say, the
PDS
pulled out of the coalition and a
General Election was called, for November 1992. It looked as if King Albert’s reign would soon be coming to a choppy end.

We had a dreadful campaign in the run-up to that election: it rained morning, noon and night, and the response to Albert was very poor. The key reasons for this were no doubt that progress in
the Northern Peace Process had badly stalled, and also that a gloomy feeling generally abounded, that Fianna Fáil was going to do badly in this election. The final result in November 1992
was not so bad for Fianna Fáil in percentage terms, in fact, but in terms of seats lost, it was not good news at all. With the loss of nine seats in total, for the first time we had become a
transfer-unfriendly party. I was glad to have retained my seat, as had Albert Reynolds, but the general result was a bitter disappointment for him. He had clearly hoped that the
PDS
would be eliminated from the field altogether, while in fact the reverse happened, as they increased their seats from four to ten.