When John Ellis walked into the Taoiseach's office in Government Buildings last Tuesday morning to discuss his future as chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, he had made his mind up he was going to resign.
He listened quietly to what Bertie Ahern, the Government Chief Whip, Seamus Brennan, and the Fianna Fail Parliamentary Party chairman, Dr Rory O'Hanlon, had to say and left. The meeting to discuss the affair, which had dragged on for three weeks, was over in 20 minutes.
Ironically it was almost 10 years earlier, on an evening in December 1989, that another Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, summoned Ellis to the same office for a meeting that indirectly led to his downfall.
The next day, Haughey gave Ellis £12,400 in cash to pay money owed to Manorhamilton Mart. The following March, when Swinford Mart threatened bankruptcy, Haughey gave Ellis a further £13,600. The payments were enough to secure the TD's, and indeed the coalition's, future.
When it was revealed at the Moriarty tribunal in early October that this cash was drawn from the Fianna Fail party leader's account, and when RTE broke the story that NIB wrote off a debt of £243,000 for Ellis in 1990, Fine Gael came under pressure to take action from western farmers owed a total of £300,000 from Ellis's failed meat company.
Senior party figures, including the leader, John Bruton, and the spokesman on agriculture, Paul Connaughton, met to discuss the issue in Leinster House on October 19th. It was decided to approach Ellis privately and ask him to step down.
Connaughton rang Ellis in his Dail office on Wednesday, October 20th, and arranged to meet him with another Fine Gael member of the Agriculture Committee, Michael Finucane, on the second floor of Leinster House. The atmosphere was cordial. The Fine Gael TDs told Ellis his position was untenable and asked him to "reflect" on the matter. Ellis said he would.
Nothing was heard from Ellis the following week, but he told colleagues he had done nothing wrong and would not be resigning. The Dail was not sitting due to the Dublin South Central by-election. By Tuesday, November 2nd, when Fine Gael had not heard from Ellis or Fianna Fail, it was decided to table a motion of no confidence in him as chairman of the Agriculture Committee. This was the beginning of the end for the TD.
The next day the PDs unwittingly raised the ante. The Minister of State, Liz O'Donnell, was taken off guard when asked about the affair at a press conference announcing details of the midterm review of Government. She said it was her personal view that Ellis should consider his position.
While many Fianna Fail backbenchers and indeed some Ministers felt that Ellis had no choice but to step down, they resented what they saw as an attempt by the junior partners in Government to push him. The Wexford Fianna Fail TD and a member of the Agriculture Committee, John Browne, said O'Donnell should "mind her own business" and let Fianna Fail sort out its own problems.
Meanwhile, Bertie Ahern was in Kosovo but was being kept informed of developments at home on the Ellis affair. Before he left the country he spoke briefly with Ellis and made it clear he was not putting him under pressure to resign. Ellis claimed after his resignation that in fact the Taoiseach urged him to hang on in there.
The big question was: did Ellis have the figures to win the vote of no confidence at the Agriculture Committee meeting scheduled for last Wednesday? With the support of Harry Blaney, the Independent TD from Donegal who is formally supporting the Government, Ellis would win.
At a Fianna Fail fund-raising lunch in London which he attended on his way back from Kosovo on Friday, November 5th, the Taoiseach declared his hand. When door-stepped by RTE, he said the Ellis debts, which arose in 1986 and 1987, were matters "that should really be consigned to history". His press spokesman, Joe Lennon, later clarified the Taoiseach's remarks, saying that Mr Ahern neither "backed nor condemned" the TD.
THE reason for the Taoiseach's "sitting on the fence" arose from the fact that word was reaching him that Ellis was threatening "to do a Ray Burke" on it by resigning his Dail seat if he was forced out by his own party as chair of the committee. In his now familiar decision-making style, the Taoiseach was trying to play both camps in Fianna Fail. Keep Ellis happy, and keep those who felt he should resign on side also.
Harry Blaney, meanwhile, said he was going to take soundings from his party organisation over the weekend before deciding how he would vote.
The Minister for Sport, Jim McDaid, was also at the fundraising lunch in London attended by Ahern. Both men went to the rugby World Cup final in Cardiff the next day. Incredible as it seems, the Ellis affair was apparently not mentioned at all.
Ellis received several phone calls over the weekend. On Sunday Jim McDaid rang him and urged him to resign. Ellis said if he were pushed he would resign his Dail seat as well. He was determined to hang in there.
However, late on Sunday night Ellis took the phone call which spelled the end. Harry Blaney informed him he could not guarantee his support at Wednesday's committee meeting. Seeing the writing on the wall, Ellis more or less made up his mind that he would tell a meeting of the Fianna Fail group of the Agriculture Committee scheduled for Tuesday he was resigning.
On Monday, Jim McDaid became the first member of Fianna Fail to break party ranks on the issue. On a visit to Sligo he called on Ellis to step down. He said it was the best thing for Ellis himself and for Fianna Fail. He repeated his comments on Questions and Answers that night.
Half-an-hour later the Cork North Central Fianna Fail TD, Billy Kelleher, followed suit with a statement calling on Ellis to step down for the sake of the party. The conspiracy theorists started working overtime, claiming that both McDaid and Kelleher were put up to their public statements in order to "flush Ellis out".
However, The Irish Times understands that both men were acting solo. Billy Kelleher said he got the courage to issue his statement when he heard the Minister on the radio news. The Taoiseach let McDaid know he was furious at his outburst.
At 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday morning, before the Cabinet meeting, John Ellis arrived at the Taoiseach's office for a meeting with Ahern, Seamus Brennan and Dr Rory O'Hanlon. The discussion centred on what would happen if the motion of no confidence went to a vote. But while he did not say it straight out it was obvious that Ellis had his mind made up to resign.
Despite the support Ellis had from within Fianna Fail, there was a huge sense of relief at the meeting that the affair was coming to an end.
After he left the meeting, Ellis drafted his resignation statement which was typed up by the Fianna Fail press office. At 2.30 he attended the meeting of the Fianna Fail members of the Agriculture Committee chaired by Johnny Brady.
Before anyone spoke, Ellis said: "Now look, lads, before you start, I am going to resign."
What had been expected to be a potentially decisive internal debate on whether he should go or face the no-confidence vote turned into a half-hour of tributes from each of the eight Fianna Fail committee members. Ellis's statement was issued to the press immediately after the meeting.
Later on Tuesday evening Ellis met Jim McDaid on the corridor in Leinster House. Both men stopped.
"You have made a mess of it, Jim," said Ellis.
"No, John. It is you who made a mess of things," replied McDaid.
