PROFILE: This week's meeting between Dermot O'Leary and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern over the 'brandy and cigars' affair at Aer Rianta, signals both the gravity of the allegations made against Minister Seamus Brennan and O'Leary's access to the very pinnacle of power, writes Arthur Beesley
Dermot O'Leary emerged this week as a crucial figure in the "brandy and cigars" affair at Aer Rianta. A former Fianna Fáil appointee to the airport company's board, he contributed to an investigation into allegations that a Cabinet member had left unpaid a £5,000 bill for drink and tobacco.
Seamus Brennan, the Transport Minister, had denied ordering or receiving luxury gifts from the airport company for his constituents and friends. He has now been exonerated by the Department of Transport's report and by the interim report of Aer Rianta.
For O'Leary - a wealthy businessman described as a complex, cautious, ambitious, enterprising and loyal figure - the affair might be little more than a sideshow at the end of his 10-year stint on the Aer Rianta board.
"He can be tough but straightforward; tough in the sense that if he had a point of view on something he'll promote it vigorously," according to one source.
It was O'Leary who added weight to the allegation in a Sunday newspaper by stating the next day that he had been aware of the alleged debt since 1993, when he was acting chairman of the company.
Noting that he had raised the matter at that time with the individual concerned, who denied knowledge of it, O'Leary said he asked that the company should follow the appropriate means to secure the money.
The owner of a large crane business, Crane Hire Ltd, O'Leary is described as a dapper dresser who enjoys the proximity to power that directorship of a State board brings. From north Dublin, he is said to be a significant kingmaker in the constituency politics that throws up election candidates.
At various times, he has been linked to the Fianna Fáil politicians Ben Briscoe, Seán Ardagh, Marian McGennis, and Liam Lawlor. But while membership of semi-State boards demonstrates clout well above the level of local politics, one informed individual said O'Leary's influence within Fianna Fáil has been over-stated.
"He sees where some people are declining and some people are ascending and he has this adaptability to move. Anybody with an ability to move to each side obviously disturbs other people," according to another source.
Described as a courteous and formal individual, if shrewd and streetwise too, an acquaintance said O'Leary has the capacity to get to the kernel of an issue very quickly. In addition, he is not known to act on emotion.
Certain individuals in the political world know him as "the undertaker", because of his sombre appearance. He is considered a republican, in the Fianna Fáil sense of the word. "He's very interested in developing his own position and that of other people on the same wavelength," says an acquaintance.
The intervention in the drink and tobacco affair was discussed when O'Leary met the Taoiseach at Ahern's constituency office in Drumcondra on Monday. What was said is not known. In the Dáil, however, Ahern said that O'Leary had "not been able to tell me anything besides what is in the public domain, which still amounts to an allegation".
That they met signals both the gravity of the allegations against Brennan and O'Leary's access to the very pinnacle of power. The next day, Brennan denied knowledge of the alleged debt to "the absolute very best of my recollection, it being approximately 12 years". In doing so, he introduced a clear conflict with the recollections of O'Leary.
O'Leary is not known for half-heartedness or self-doubt. According to one person who has known him for some time: "He's not the type that would go much with the majority view if he didn't agree with it. If he had held something very strongly, he wouldn't necessarily back off very easily. He probably wouldn't allow that it could be wrong."
The drink and tobacco story emerged as Brennan encounters tension in his relationship with Aer Rianta over Government plans to establish airports at Dublin, Cork and Shannon as independent entities and provide a rival terminal to Aer Rianta's in Dublin. These initiatives are regarded as folly by many senior figures in Aer Rianta, which would cease to exist in its current form were they to be introduced.
In addition, the affair emerged a fortnight after O'Leary's second five-year term on the Aer Rianta board ended. Informed figures did not expect the Government to reappoint O'Leary, contrary, it is believed, to his own hopes. However, he stated this week that the question of another term on the board was immaterial because of his long service. He has also said that he was not the source of the original story in the Sunday Independent.
However, his giving credence to the story was enough to plunge him into the very heart of political drama this week.
Yet O'Leary has been here before too. Even though his crane business is a low-profile one, and he is more familiar to the backroom of politics than the frontline, his time on State boards has proved highly controversial on occasion. He apologised to the Government earlier this year for arranging special passage through Dublin airport for his friend, the former Fianna Fáil politician, Liam Lawlor, and his wife, Hazel.
Many individuals familiar with O'Leary described this as a minor matter, borne of his sense of loyalty to a friend. It was one which led to calls for him to stand down, which, not surprisingly, he rebuffed.
"He is a man who believes that if he is right, he is right," says an acquaintance.
In 1995, O'Leary was infamously removed as chairman of CIÉ by the then minister for transport, Michael Lowry, 10 months into what was to be a five-year term of office. Ironically, Brennan was one of the first individuals to jump to his support on that occasion. O'Leary had been on the board since 1989, joining towards the end of the Haughey era.
The circumstances of that removal, amid Lowry's unproven allegations of a "cosy cartel" in the semi-State sector, are the subject of a High Court action by O'Leary against the State. The substantive issues have yet to be heard, but they involve allegations that certain civil servants of the time orchestrated a plot to have him removed. The allegations were denied.
For his part, O'Leary has denied board-room allegations by his successor at CIÉ, Eamonn Walsh, that business trips O'Leary made to South Africa and Australia had not yielded "one bit of value" to the cash-strapped transport group. O'Leary's taking of this court case is characteristic, according to one acquaintance. "There's the sense that if he believes he has done nothing wrong he will support himself to the hilt."
In addition, his re-appointment to the Aer Rianta board in 1997 was seen as an effective endorsement of his performance at CIÉ. Senior political sources say that the appointment was cleared by Bertie Ahern. O'Leary had denied as "innuendo" suggestions that there was some conflict between his ownership of Crane Hire Ltd, and his role in CIÉ.
In an arena in which the polite ambience of cronyism and patronage is often shattered by rampant politicking, O'Leary is something of a survivor.
"Aer Rianta is a blood sport these days and any publicity is bad publicity," concludes one disheartened observer.