Charles Haughey was Minister for the Gaeltacht from 1987 to 1992, Leader of the Opposition from 1981 to 1982 and 1982 to 1987, Leader of Fianna Fail from 1979 to 1992, Minister for Social Welfare and for Health from 1977 to 1979, Minister for Finance from 1966 to 1970, Minister for Agriculture from 1964 to 1966, Minister for Justice from 1961 to 1964 and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Justice from 1959 to 1961.
81 Facts About Charles Haughey
2.
Charles Haughey served as a Teachta Dala from 1957 to 1992.
3.
Charles Haughey was first elected to Dail Eireann as a Fianna Fail TD in 1957 and was re-elected at every election until 1992, representing successively the Dublin North-East, Dublin Artane and Dublin North-Central constituencies.
4.
Charles Haughey was the dominant Irish politician of his generation, as well as the most controversial.
5.
Charles Haughey was implicated in the Arms Crisis of 1970, which nearly destroyed his career.
6.
Charles Haughey died of prostate cancer in 2006, aged 80.
7.
Charles Haughey was born in Castlebar, County Mayo in 1925, the third of seven children, of Sean Haughey and Sarah McWilliams, both natives of Swatragh, County Londonderry.
8.
Charles Haughey's father was in the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence, then in the National Army of the Irish Free State.
9.
Sean Haughey left the army in 1928 and the family moved to County Meath; he subsequently developed multiple sclerosis and the family moved again to Donnycarney, a northern suburb of Dublin, where Charles Haughey spent his youth.
10.
Charles Haughey was educated by the Irish Christian Brothers at St Joseph's secondary school in Fairview, where one of his classmates was George Colley, subsequently his cabinet colleague and rival in Fianna Fail.
11.
Charles Haughey studied commerce at University College Dublin, where he took a first class Honours degree in 1946.
12.
Charles Haughey met there one of his future political rivals, Garret FitzGerald.
13.
Charles Haughey joined the Local Defence Force during "The Emergency" in 1941 and considered a permanent career in the Army.
14.
Charles Haughey continued to serve in the reserve FCA force, until entering Dail Eireann in 1957.
15.
Charles Haughey started his political career as a local councillor, being a member of Dublin Corporation from 1953 to 1955.
16.
Charles Haughey was re-elected in every election until 1992, representing Dublin North-East from 1957 to 1977, Dublin Artane from 1977 to 1981, and Dublin North-Central from 1981 until his retirement in 1992.
17.
In 1959, Charles Haughey obtained his first government position, that of Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Justice, serving under his constituency colleague Oscar Traynor, appointed by the first government of his father-in-law Sean Lemass.
18.
Charles Haughey regularly socialised with other younger cabinet colleagues, such as Donogh O'Malley and Brian Lenihan.
19.
When Traynor retired in 1961, Charles Haughey succeeded him as Minister for Justice.
20.
Charles Haughey introduced new legislation including the Adoption Act; the Succession Act, which protected the inheritance rights of wives and children; the Criminal Justice Act, which severely restricted the application of capital punishment; and the Extradition Act, which virtually prevented extradition for IRA offences.
21.
Charles Haughey introduced the Special Military Courts which helped to defeat the Irish Republican Army's Border Campaign.
22.
Charles Haughey became embroiled in a series of controversies with the NFA and with another organisation, the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association.
23.
Charles Haughey, who did not rely on rural voters, was under intense pressure from fearful members of his own party to negotiate a deal and reduce the tension.
24.
Charles Haughey was appointed by Fianna Fail to run President Eamon de Valera's re-election campaign for the 1966 presidential election.
25.
Aware that de Valera's age and almost total blindness might compare unfavourably to O'Higgins, whose campaign drew comparisons with the equally youthful US President John F Kennedy, Haughey launched what was seen as a political stroke.
26.
Charles Haughey insisted that it was beneath the presidency to actively campaign, meaning that de Valera would have a low profile.
27.
Charles Haughey declared his candidature to succeed Lemass in the consequent leadership election, and George Colley and Neil Blaney did likewise.
28.
The inexpensive and socially inclusive initiatives that Charles Haughey made caught the public imagination; these included popular decisions to introduce free travel on public transport for pensioners, subsidise electricity for pensioners, the granting of special tax concessions for the disabled and tax exemptions for artists.
29.
When this was challenged by the Comptroller and Auditor General Eugene Francis Suttle, Charles Haughey introduced a law to retrospectively legalise his actions.
30.
Charles Haughey was generally seen as coming from the pragmatist wing of the party, and was not believed to have strong opinions on the matter, despite having family links with Derry.
31.
In 1975, Fianna Fail was in opposition and Charles Haughey had achieved enough grassroots support to warrant a recall to Jack Lynch's opposition front bench.
32.
Charles Haughey was appointed Spokesman on Health and Social Welfare, a fairly minor portfolio at the time, but Charles Haughey used the same imagination and skill he displayed in other positions to formulate innovative and far reaching policies.
33.
Charles Haughey returned to the cabinet, after an absence of seven years, as Minister for Health and Social Welfare.
34.
Charles Haughey called this bill "an Irish solution to an Irish problem".
35.
Nonetheless, on 11 December 1979, Charles Haughey was elected Taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fail, almost a decade after the Arms Crisis set back his political career.
36.
When Charles Haughey came to power, the country was sinking into a deep economic crisis, following the 1979 energy crisis.
37.
Charles Haughey effectively acted as his own Minister for Finance, ignoring the views of his Minister.
38.
Charles Haughey increased public spending, which soon became out of control, and led to increases in borrowing and taxation at an unacceptable level.
39.
The Economist obituary on Charles Haughey asserted that he had warned the bank "I can be a very troublesome adversary".
40.
However, on the day of the vote O'Malley withdrew and Charles Haughey went forward as the nominee.
41.
Charles Haughey engineered confidence and supply agreements with the Independent Socialist TD, Tony Gregory, the Independent Fianna Fail TD Neil Blaney and three Workers' Party TDs, which saw him return as Taoiseach for a second time.
42.
Not long after this, Charles Haughey's government collapsed when the Workers' Party TD's and Tony Gregory withdrew their support for the government over a Fianna Fail policy document called "The Way Forward," which would lead to massive spending cuts.
43.
At a press conference on the affair, Charles Haughey was paraphrased as having described the affair as "grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented", from which journalist and former politician Conor Cruise O'Brien coined the term GUBU.
44.
Charles Haughey's leadership came under scrutiny for a third time when a report linked Charles Haughey with the phone tapping of political journalists.
45.
In spite of huge pressure Charles Haughey refused to resign and survived yet another vote of no-confidence in early 1983, albeit with a smaller majority.
46.
Charles Haughey's success was partly due to the death of the Fianna Fail TD Clement Coughlan, a supporter of O'Malley.
47.
Charles Haughey's supporters managed to have the meeting moved to the following week after the funeral, which gave him more time to manoeuver.
48.
Charles Haughey was involved in the drafting of this at the time he was in office and had agreed to potential scenarios for improving the political situation of Northern Ireland.
49.
However, on publication, Charles Haughey rejected it and said the only possible solution was a United Ireland.
50.
Ironically, when Charles Haughey returned to power he embraced the Anglo-Irish Agreement that had developed from the New Ireland Forum Report.
51.
When it came to electing a Taoiseach in the Dail Charles Haughey's position looked particularly volatile.
52.
When it came to a vote the Independent TD Tony Gregory voted against Fitzgerald but abstained on Charles Haughey, seeing Charles Haughey as the "lesser of two evils".
53.
Charles Haughey was elected Taoiseach on the casting vote of the Ceann Comhairle.
54.
Constitutionally Charles Haughey was obliged to resign, however he refused to, for a short period.
55.
Charles Haughey eventually tendered his resignation to President Hillery and remained on as Taoiseach, albeit in an acting capacity.
56.
Charles Haughey believed both Ireland and Germany were similar in that both countries were divided.
57.
The Progressive Democrats threatened to pull out of the coalition and support a Fine Gael no-confidence motion unless Charles Haughey forced Lenihan out.
58.
Charles Haughey tried to force Lenihan to resign, and sacked him when he refused to do so.
59.
Lenihan's dismissal damaged Charles Haughey's standing in the Fianna Fail organisation.
60.
Reynolds and his supporters were sacked from the government by Charles Haughey, who went on to win the no-confidence motion by 55 votes to 22.
61.
Charles Haughey's victory was short-lived, as a series of political errors would lead to his demise as Taoiseach.
62.
Worse was to follow when Sean Doherty, who as Minister for Justice had taken the blame for the phone-tapping scandal of the early 1980s, went on RTE television, and after ten years of insisting that Charles Haughey knew nothing of the tapping, claimed that Charles Haughey had known and authorised it.
63.
Charles Haughey denied this, but the Progressive Democrats members of the government stated that they could no longer continue in government with Charles Haughey as Taoiseach.
64.
Charles Haughey told Desmond O'Malley, the Progressive Democrats leader, that he intended to stand down shortly, but wanted to choose his own time of departure.
65.
On 30 January 1992, Charles Haughey resigned as leader of Fianna Fail at a parliamentary party meeting.
66.
Charles Haughey remained as Taoiseach until 11 February 1992, when he was succeeded by the former Finance Minister, Albert Reynolds.
67.
Charles Haughey then returned to the backbenches before retiring from politics at the 1992 general election.
68.
Sean Charles Haughey was appointed as a Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science in December 2006.
69.
Charles Haughey refused throughout his career to answer any questions about how he financed this lifestyle on a government salary.
70.
In 1997, a government-appointed tribunal, led by Judge Brian McCracken, first revealed that Charles Haughey had received substantial monetary gifts from businessmen and that he had held secret offshore bank accounts in the Ansbacher Bank in the Cayman Islands.
71.
Charles Haughey faced criminal charges for obstructing the work of the McCracken tribunal.
72.
Also in 1997, the public were shocked by allegations that Charles Haughey had embezzled money destined for the Fianna Fail party, taxpayers' money taken from government funds earmarked for the operation of a political party, and that he had spent large portions of these funds on Charvet shirts and expensive dinners in a top Dublin restaurant, while preaching belt-tightening and implementing budget cuts as a national policy.
73.
Charles Haughey continued to live at Abbeville and own the island of Inishvickillane off the coast of County Kerry until his death.
74.
In May 1999, Terry Keane, gossip columnist and once wife of former Chief Justice of Ireland Ronan Keane, revealed on The Late Late Show that she and Charles Haughey had conducted a 27-year extramarital affair.
75.
Charles Haughey died from prostate cancer, from which he had suffered for a decade, on 13 June 2006, at his home in Kinsealy, County Dublin, aged 80.
76.
Charles Haughey was buried in St Fintan's Cemetery, Sutton in County Dublin, following mass at Donnycarney.
77.
Former Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald said that Charles Haughey had the potential to be one of the best Taoisigh that the country ever had, had his preoccupation with wealth and power not clouded his judgement:.
78.
Charles Haughey spent much energy fending off leadership challenges, chasing an elusive Dail majority and dealing with GUBU-like events.
79.
Charles Haughey had an immense ability to get things done and he inspired great loyalty amongst many of his followers both inside and outside Fianna Fail.
80.
Charles Haughey was a very promising minister in the '60s, but once he became leader all he was concerned with was staying leader.
81.
Charles Haughey was characterised in a 2012 novel Ratlines, by Stuart Neville.