Memoir: A talented but flawed Charles Haughey stalks the pages of this memoir by a journalist who reported for 20 years on a tumultuous period in Irish politics before becoming Ireland's first Ombudsman, writes Joe Carroll
At first attracted to a young, charismatic Haughey and later repelled by his "undesirable traits", Mills found his own career dogged by the man who, he became convinced, was "a threat to the democratic process". Mills from the press gallery observed the politicians who walked the corridors of Leinster House from 1964 to 1984. He reported on the end of the Lemass era; the triumphs and tribulations of Jack Lynch; the Cosgrave-Corish "Cabinet of all the talents"; Haughey's rise from the humiliation of the Arms Trial to lead Fianna Fáil and the country; and the Garret FitzGerald liberal "crusade".
It was a good time to be a political journalist but the young Michael Mills, happy writing theatre and film criticism for the Irish Press, was reluctant to become the political correspondent when asked by Major Vivion de Valera. He agreed "on condition that I would not be required to write propaganda of any description". It was a courageous condition to pose to the man who could hire and fire him and whose father had founded the paper.
Over the next 20 years, Michael Mills won the respect of politicians across the board for his reporting. At one stage, Vivion de Valera had to protect him from Fianna Fáil grass roots attempts to have Mills fired from the paper over his appearances on RTÉ's Hurler on the Ditch programme on politics. "Do not let it worry you," Vivion said. "I trust you and will stand by you."
Mills's relationship to some politicians would be seen as strange, even naive, by today's cut-throat standards of political reporting. When James Dillon, newly elected leader of Fine Gael, turns down a request for an interview, Mills expresses the hope that "we might become friends" and eventually they do. It was Dillon who first warned him about Haughey, telling him: "Don't ever get close to that man. There is a fatal flaw in his character which will manifest itself sooner or later and people around him will be badly hurt". Yet Mills confesses that there was a time he would have liked to include Haughey among the politicians "who won my support and affection". Sean Lemass was a "hero" for Mills and so was Jack Lynch. Mills formed "a strong attachment" to Lynch who would confide in him from time to time.
This did not prevent Mills from breaking a story in 1979 on the secret concession to allow British overflights in pursuit of terrorists, which greatly damaged Lynch and even hastened his departure as Taoiseach. This gave Haughey the chance he was waiting for and Mills watched his use of power with increasing disillusionment. He admired aspects of Haughey, "the most talented politician of his time", but it was also "a time of deceit and duplicity".
How Haughey himself felt on the day the Irish Press published his political obituary as the Fianna Fáil leader was struggling to survive the most serious of the "heaves" against him in January 1983, we may never know. But it was a great embarrassment for Mills who did not believe Haughey was on the point of resigning and did not know that the paper was going to run the "obituary". Mills is still resentful at how he was let down by his editors in Burgh Quay by what he calls this "major faux pas".
The signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985 is described as Garret FitzGerald's "greatest achievement". Haughey's sending of Brian Lenihan to the US to undermine the Agreement is described as "almost treasonable activity". When Haughey came back to power in 1987 (not 1986 as stated in the book), Mills was the first Ombudsman, having been appointed by the Fine Gael-Labour Coalition in 1983. Mills had made it a condition of acceptance that Haughey, then leader of the Opposition, would agree to his appointment.
In spite of this, Mills continued to fear Haughey's "hostility" to the post. For the first three years all went well as the Coalition continued to support the new post with money and resources, but "as I feared, Charles J. Haughey returned to power in 1986 and my nightmare began shortly after that". The nightmare was not altogether of Haughey's doing. The public finances were in such a disastrous state that cuts in Government expenditure were necessary across the board but the Ombudsman was targeted for a 20 per cent cut of £100,000 when the average for other departments was 12 per cent. When this happened for a second year and his staff had been drastically reduced, Mills had to bypass the Government and enlist the help of the trade unions to ensure his office survived.
But the feud with Haughey was not over. When Mills came up for re- appointment in 1989, Haughey had already decided on his successor and it was thanks to the intervention of Des O'Malley, as leader of the Progressive Democrats, that Mills got a second term.Terry Keane even gets a walk-on part in the saga.
Mills claims that Haughey as taoiseach nominated Dr Patrick Hillery for a second term as president in 1983 although the latter wanted to escape "the stifling atmosphere" of Áras an Uachtaráin. But Haughey was not the Taoiseach then and the pressure on Dr Hillery to stay came from Garret FitzGerald as Taoiseach and Dick Spring as Tánaiste, both of whom wanted to avoid the expense of a presidential election and the headache of trying to find candidates. Haughey simply went along with their appeals to Hillery to stay on.
In his rather confusing chapter on the Arms Trial, Mills reveals how Jack Lynch in retirement was greatly upset at the revisionist theories by historians and TV programmes. They claimed that Lynch had known all along that Haughey and Blaney were involved in organising a secret arms shipment but that he was just giving them "sufficient rope to hang themselves". Lynch consulted Mills about the best way to correct this interpretation and the latter gave him the obvious advice that he should set down his own version, with the help of "trusted friends" if necessary. Unfortunately Lynch fell ill soon afterwards and nothing was done.
Michael Mills would have been the right man for it.
Joe Carroll was a Parliamentary Correspondent and Washington Correspondent for The Irish Times.
Hurler On The Ditch: Memoir of a Journalist who became Ireland's first Ombudsman. By Michael Mills, Currach Press, 175pp. €13.99