Life and times of Seán Doherty: The Doc, a gregarious and quick-witted politician, was seen as something of a character during social occasions with fellow TDs.
Seán Doherty, who has died aged 60 years, was a controversial and colourful TD, senator and minister who became embroiled in one of the most sensational political events in the history of the State.
Throughout his 25-year career in the Oireachtas, he was never far from controversy. A close associate of Charles Haughey from early on, he was appointed minister for justice in the shortlived Fianna Fáil minority government of 1982, when the telephones of two journalists were tapped.
This was to sow the seeds of Mr Haughey's political destruction some years later when Mr Doherty, then cathaoirleach of the Seanad, called a press conference to announce that Mr Haughey knew of the tapping.
Mr Haughey trenchantly denied the claim but resigned as taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader as it became apparent that he had lost the confidence of his PD partners and the support of many within the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party.
The two became bitter political foes, with Mr Haughey's scathing depiction of the party's "country and western wing", a reference to supporters of his successor, Albert Reynolds, who included Mr Doherty.
Seán Doherty was born in Cootehall, Co Roscommon, in 1944 and educated locally and at the Presentation Brothers in Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim.
His father was a member of Clann na Poblachta and later a Fianna Fáil member of Roscommon County Council.
Mr Doherty joined An Garda Síochána in 1965 and served in Sligo for six years. In 1971 he was transferred to Donnybrook station, Dublin, and later to the Special Branch in Dublin Castle, where he was a detective.
When his father died in 1973 he left the Garda to return to Roscommon where he was co-opted to take his place on the council.
He was elected to the Dáil on his first attempt in 1977, when Jack Lynch led Fianna Fáil to a 20-seat majority.
Mr Doherty was one of a number of restless backbenchers who saw little chance of promotion under Mr Lynch.
They gravitated towards the then minister for health, Charles Haughey, who was in contention with George Colley for the leadership.
Mr Doherty became part of the so-called "gang of five" who helped to mastermind Mr Haughey's campaign. They were pragmatists who saw their chance of political advancement tied to Mr Haughey's success in the leadership battle.
When Mr Lynch stood down in late 1979 they were among those who did a head count of deputies. As the campaign progressed, and Mr Haughey assured them of what they considered to be exaggerated support, Mr Doherty told Mr Haughey that he was one of the worst judges of people he had met.
When Mr Haughey won, Mr Colley as tánaiste had a veto over who would be nominated to the justice and defence posts. Mr Doherty was rewarded by Mr Haughey with the post of minister of state for justice, a position he served in until the government went out of office in 1981.
By the time Mr Haughey was returned to power at the head of a Fianna Fáil minority government in February 1982, the Colley challenge had faded, and Mr Haughey was free to appoint Mr Doherty to the key and politically sensitive post of minister for justice.
That government became engulfed in controversy and scandal and became known as the gubu (grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre, unprecedented) administration, thanks to one of Mr Haughey's strongest critics, Dr Conor Cruise O'Brien, who was then writing a weekly column in The Irish Times.
Although there were reservations about the appointment of a former garda to the post, Mr Doherty took to the job with gusto, promising to lift the "veil of conservatism" within the department.
But the storm clouds were gathering.
There was controversy surrounding the building of a security wall by the Board of Works outside his Cootehall home.
Then there was the so-called Dowra case, in which a man who lived in Co Fermanagh was detained by the RUC only hours before he was due to give evidence in a District Court case in Dowra, Co Cavan, in relation to an assault charge against a brother-in-law of Mr Doherty, who was a garda.
It later emerged that the Garda and the RUC were in contact prior to the man's detention, and an RUC officer complained to his superiors about the detention order.
There were also allegations involving Mr Doherty about the attempted transfer of a garda sergeant from Boyle, Co Roscommon.
In late 1982 an internal garda appeal hearing made a unanimous decision in favour of Sgt Thomas Tully, of Boyle station, who had resisted a transfer to Co Cavan after two raids on a local public house where people were found to be drinking after hours.
Sgt Tully claimed at the time that Mr Doherty had been responsible for "an unbearable amount of political interference" in Garda affairs in the area.
Mr Doherty denied he was guilty of anything improper in all cases.
His attention to minor details in his department, which might influence his public image, and matters relating to his Roscommon constituency, were legendary.
There was intense rivalry between himself and his constituency colleague, Terry Leyden, who had been made a junior minister. Both were entitled to State cars.
Mr Doherty was able to exercise a measure of control over who got what because they were allocated from Garda headquarters. Mr Doherty had a black Mercedes, while Mr Leyden had to do with a Peugeot 604. The minister for justice believed that this would not go unnoticed in their native Roscommon.
Joe Joyce and Peter Murtagh in their book, The Boss, gave a flavour of Mr Doherty's time in the Department of Justice.
"Routine work in the Department of Justice piled up. Seán Doherty was sometimes absent for days on end, and showed little interest in dealing with the everyday affairs of the ministry. Files on matters needing his approval or examination were sent to his office, but officials waited in vain for instructions and grew anxious when it became apparent that he would only deal with matters requiring an immediate decision. Everything else was put on the long finger.
"As a politician Doherty had progressed well in a very short time but as a cabinet member he had a primitive understanding of the power at his disposal . . . At cabinet, he made little impression. He was seen to be very close to Haughey but some believed he had been appointed just to do the taoiseach's bidding."
Mr Doherty returned to the opposition benches with his party when the Fine Gael-Labour coalition won the November 1982 general election.
The biggest controversy of his career surfaced unexpectedly when the new Fine Gael minister for justice, Michael Noonan, disclosed in 1983 that the telephones of two journalists, Geraldine Kennedy and Bruce Arnold, had been tapped. Ms Kennedy, editor of The Irish Times, was political correspondent of the Sunday Press, while Mr Arnold wrote for the Irish Independent.
Ms Kennedy had been writing detailed reports on challenges within Fianna Fáil to Mr Haughey's continued leadership of the party.
The tapping was authorised by warrants signed by Mr Doherty, while the Garda commissioner, Patrick McLaughlin, had approved them. In the ensuing political storm, Mr McLaughlin and deputy commissioner Joe Ainsworth retired from the force.
It was also revealed that Ray MacSharry, a former tánaiste and senior Fianna Fáil minister, used a miniature tape recorder to bug a conversation he had with another former Fianna Fáil minister, Dr Martin O'Donoghue. Mr Doherty had asked Mr Ainsworth to supply Mr MacSharry with the device.
Mr Doherty and Mr MacSharry resigned from the party's front bench, while Mr Haughey insisted that he knew nothing of the phone taps and the bugged conversation.
Mr Haughey expressed his concern that his two colleagues had to resign their positions and that two police officers, for whom he had the highest regard, had to retire.
In February 1983 Mr Doherty resigned the party whip, as Mr Haughey considered a reshuffle of hisfront bench.
In his letter of resignation to Mr Haughey, he wrote: "I know there is no need to assure you of my constant loyalty to Fianna Fáil and my wish to continue to serve the organisation in any way open to me at all times in the future."
Later that year Mr Doherty was involved in a local controversy when the Labour Court ruled that he had used political influence to have a man appointed to a position of lock-keeper, toll-collector at Knockvicar, Co Leitrim, although he was only fourth on a list of suitable applicants recommended by an interview board of the Office of Public Works.
"Let the Labour Court keep their snouts out of my affairs," was Mr Doherty's response.
In December 1984 he was restored to the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party. Seven hundred supporters welcomed him home to Boyle.
Mr Doherty began preparing for a return to the front line of national politics.
With Fianna Fáil in opposition, he had time on his hands. He continued to nurse the constituency. He stopped drinking alcohol for a period and made it known that he had found religion. He wore a ring which had a religious significance.
In January 1987 the High Court awarded £20,000 each to Ms Kennedy and Mr Arnold, and £10,000 to Mr Arnold's wife, Mavis, a freelance journalist. They were also allowed costs in their action against Ireland and the attorney general.
In his judgment Mr Justice Hamilton said he was satisfied that the reputations of the three journalists had been vindicated.
He added that the injury done to the three journalists' right to privacy was serious, the distress suffered as a result was significant, and in the case of Ms Kennedy and Mr Arnold was done "consciously, deliberately and without justification".
The injury to Ms Arnold, he added, was not done consciously or deliberately but incidentally.
In the run-up to the 1987 general election, Mr Doherty made it privately known to journalists that he would expect a ministerial post from Mr Haughey if Fianna Fáil returned to power.
He hinted darkly that his exclusion from office might encourage him to talk more freely about the events of the gubu era.
When Mr Haughey formed a minority administration in 1987, there was nothing for Mr Doherty. But he kept his silence and prepared the way to run in the Connacht-Ulster constituency for the European Parliament in 1989.
He was faced with a dilemma when the general and European elections were called on the same day, in June 1989. He ran in both elections and failed.
It was a devastating blow for a man who, whatever about Europe, had believed he had a safe Dáil seat, having been a poll-topper in the past.
He successfully ran for the Seanad and tied with party colleague Des Hanafin for the Fianna Fáil nomination for cathaoirleach. His name was drawn from a hat and he was elected to the prestigious post.
Mr Doherty was back centre-stage politically, but it was not long before he was, yet again, embroiled in controversy.
In early 1990, Dublin University member David Norris alleged that Mr Doherty was involved in having the composition of a delegation to Nicaragua for the election changed to exclude the National University senator John A Murphy.
Later it emerged that Mr Doherty had withheld from the Seanad Committee on Procedure and Privileges legal advice that he should not have presided over the hearing of Mr Norris's allegation.
He faced threats of a motion of no confidence, with no guarantee that he would win despite the government's majority in the Seanad.
Mr Doherty apologised unreservedly for his "error of judgment", but a motion of no- confidence went ahead.
He won the day after a stormy 4½-hour debate. The three PD senators voted against him, despite the fact that the party was now in power with Fianna Fáil.
Meanwhile, Mr Haughey was slowly but surely losing his grip on the Fianna Fáil leadership, as Albert Reynolds waited in the wings.
The sacking of tánaiste Brian Lenihan in the middle of the 1990 presidential election campaign, and the subsequent Fianna Fáil loss of the office to Mary Robinson, further damaged Mr Haughey.
The fatal blow came in January 1992, when Mr Doherty placed a political landmine under Mr Haughey's leadership by way of remarks he made on a television programme, Nighthawks.
The programme came from Hell's Kitchen pub, in Castlerea, and dealt mainly with a new book, Jiving at the Crossroads, by journalist John Waters.
Asked by presenter Shay Healy about the telephone tapping of the two journalists nine years earlier, Mr Doherty said he had felt let down by people who knew what he was doing. He said he had a constitutional obligation to discover who was taking information out of the most important boardroom in the country and making it available without authority to the national media and others.
His colleagues in cabinet also felt it was wrong, "and consequently I was required to ensure that that it would be stopped and I consulted with the authorities at that time and one of the methods that was decided upon was the tapping of telephones and anybody else who says otherwise or or tries to abandon himself or herself from that situation is not telling the truth".
Mr Doherty, who had always claimed he acted alone, now appeared to be indicating that others knew.
There was pressure on Mr Doherty to clarify his remarks. Mr Haughey remained silent.
The landmine exploded on the evening of Tuesday, January 21st, when Mr Doherty read a statement to a Dublin press conference. He took no questions.
"I am confirming tonight that the taoiseach, Mr Haughey, was fully aware in 1982 that two journalists' phones were being tapped, and that he at no stage expressed a reservation about this action," said Mr Doherty.
He said that he had personally taken the transcripts of the taps to Mr Haughey in his office and left them in his possession.
Mr Doherty spoke of how he had lost his job and reputation at the time, although his family and constituents continued to believe in him.
He had decided to break his silence, he said, because legislation covering, among other things, phone tapping, was to shortly come before the Oireachtas.
He knew, he said, that he would be asked why he should be believed when he had said something different nine years earlier.
He had nothing to gain and everything to lose by saying what he was saying.
"The bottom line is this: I have to live with me. I have a wife, four daughters, good friends, constituents who have stood by me through a difficult decade," he added.
"For my sake and for their sake, I am saying enough is enough."
Choking with emotion, Mr Doherty also announced that he was resigning as cathaoirleach of the Seanad.
Mr Haughey categorically denied that he had received the transcripts.
As to why Mr Doherty had changed his version of events, Mr Haughey said that it related "far more to his own perceived political convenience at the present time and not to any exacting standards of truthfulness".
For Mr Haughey the die was cast, as coalition partners, the PDs, made it clear it was a scandal too many. Des O'Malley said that he was "devastated" by the "chilling account" given by Mr Doherty.
Mr Haughey stood down as taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader.
Mr Doherty retreated to Roscommon, where he still had a loyal following despite the loss of his Dáil seat.
In the 1992 election he returned to the Dáil in the Longford-Roscommon constituency, elected on the last count without reaching the quota.
Given his controversial past, he knew he had no hope of ministerial advancement when Fianna Fáil joined Labour in government.
He held his seat in the 1997 election, and recovered from a health setback at that time. He continued his interest in religion, and was a visitor to the House of Prayer in Achill Island.
In September 1998 a Roscommon county councillor, Tom Crosby, was ordered by a District Court judge to pay £500 compensation to Mr Doherty after the judge heard evidence that the defendant had trespassed in a house, shouted abuse at the then cathaoirleach of the Seanad, Brian Mullooly, and assaulted Mr Doherty.
In evidence Mr Doherty said he had a bump in his head after the incident, which he mentioned to his doctor but which did not require treatment.
Mr Doherty gave an impressive performance in the Oireachtas committee's examination of the Dirt taxation scandal.
To the end he defended his decision to tap the journalists' telephones.
In October 2001 Taoiseach Bertie Ahern apologised to Ms Kennedy and Mr Arnold. Mr Ahern said that the 1982 interceptions were "an inappropriate invasion of their privacy and interference by the State with their role as journalists".
Mr Doherty was thought to be angered by the remarks, and he sought legal advice. But he said he did not intend making any comment at that stage. At the time he was heading a stalled inquiry into a multimillion cost overrun on a Iarnród Éireann signalling contract.
During his appearance before the Oireachtas inquiry, the founder of Esat, Denis O'Brien, claimed Mr Doherty was "unfit" to lead the inquiry because of his involvement in phone tapping.
He seemed happy to leave politics in 2002, declaring his intention to do so well in advance of the general election.
He went on to concentrate on business interests which involved house building.
Gregarious and quick-witted, "The Doc" was seen as something of a character during social occasions with fellow TDs. He returned to Leinster House for reunions with former members, including one earlier this year.
Mr Doherty is survived by his wife, Maura, and four daughters.