Charlie Haughey
In August 1982 the double murderer Malcolm MacArthur was found in the then Attorney General's apartment in Dalkey When the Taoiseach of the day was informed of this, on the eve of the said officer's departure for the United States, he decribed the affair as 'Grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented' thus giving rise to the term GUBU which has now come to describe any vaguely untoward `political event in Ireland. It is in honour of this historic utterance that we name our site. Thank you Charlie Haughey!
Just before he became Taoiseach in 1980 Mr. Haughey , with the help of his financial advisor Des Traynor, had a debt of £1.14 million pounds which he owed to Allied Irish Banks 'taken care of'.
A Mr Phelan,
manager of the bank wrote to Mr Haughey on his subsequent election.
'Dear Mr Haughey,
It gives me great pleasure to convey my warmest congratulations on your election to the high offices of leader of Fianna Fail and An Taoiseach and to offer you my sincere good wishes for success in both.
To say the task you have taken on is daunting is an understatement but I have every faith in your ability to succeed in restoring confidence in this great little nation. '
However an outstanding debt of £110,000 remained with the bank which to this day has not been repaid. At his last appearance before the Moriarty Tribunal Mr. Haughey was questioned by Mr John Coughlan S.C. about his failure to honour this debt.
of this cross-examination.
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Coughlan
You never paid that, did you?
Haughey
Well, no.
Coughlan
And nobody......it was recorded as being a debt of honour, but nonetheless a security was held in respect of the island of Inishvickillane, and nobody asked you to pay that money to honour your debt of honour?
Haughey
No. First of all, the security wasn’t of any particular significance in those days and secondly, nobody,... nobody.....first of all, as well, there was no interest being charged.
There was no interest being charged?
Haughey
And, in fact, I think the letter makes some reference, in fact, that nothing was to happen about it. There were no other ..... no transactions were to take place, isn’t that.....
Coughlan
That’s right. It was considered a debt of honour and I think what was expected that you, as a man of honour, wou1d honour that debt of honour within a reasonable period of time. I think that could be a reasonable reading of the letter, would you agree?
Haughey
I think you are putting a lot of stress on honour, on the debt of honour, which I don’ t know what significance the bank attributed to it at that stage, but it’s in the letter but they never sought....they never came to me.....never mentioned it since and I quite frankly had forgotten about it.
Could I ask you this, you signed and accepted these particular terms, Mr. Haughey?
Yes.
You were the head of government of this country at the time you did that?
Yes.
You held a position of honour, isn’t that correct?
Yes.
And you were entering into an agreement with this bank to accept a debt of honour, isn’t that correct?
That’s what’s in the letter, yes.
And wou1d you agree that a debt of honour is one which wou1d be one wou1d be honoured by honourable people?.
Yes.
And bearing in mind the position of honour you held, do you have any reason as to why you didn’t honour this debt?
The debt is still there. I haven’t dishonoured it.
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