"You're a great man, Jackie," said Mr Charles J Haughey to Mr Jackie Healy-Rae, the former Fianna Fail stalwart in the Kilgarvan area of south Kerry, when they met at the launch of the Valentia lifeboat last summer.
It was a strange encounter, but a most interesting one. At the time, Mr Haughey was considering his options - would he appear at that tribunal? Mr HealyRae had also been doing some considering.
He felt he had been badly treated by Fianna Fail in south Kerry. The party had passed him over at a selection convention prior to the last general election. In a colourful campaign, he went on to become an Independent ail TD for the constituency. But before that, Mr Healy-Rae sniffed something rotten in the air. He went to to confront the party leader, Mr Bertie Ahern. The Ex- aminer's man in Kerry is Donal Hickey. He has covered it all. Who better to write the biography of Mr Healy-Rae?
This is how he has recounted the south Kerry TD's meeting on February 14th, 1997 between the man himself, his great friend, Mr Maurice Galvin, and Mr Ahern.
"He welcomed us when we went into his office and was very nice, so I explained my side of the story. He talked broadly about it and at no time did he indicate that I wouldn't be on the ticket, leaving it very open.
"I felt there was one man who wanted me added and that was Ray MacSharry, chairman of the party's Strategy Committee, for the message got through to him that I should be a candidate if the second seat was to be saved in the constituency. "Before finishing with Bertie Ahern, I told him I was dead certain that Fianna Fail would lose two seats, one in South Kerry and the other in west Limerick, if he didn't do something about the situation in both constituencies. As I was leaving, I said to Bertie that I had done a lot of work for Fianna Fail and had only one request to make of him - `for Christ's sake, don't be the cause of sending me on the road as an Independent Fianna Fail candidate in south Kerry'. Then he said, - `Jack, that'll never happen. I'll be meeting Ray MacSharry on Monday morning and that'll be all sorted out."
According to Mr Hickey, when he interviewed Mr Healy-Rae, he the TD dismissed the Fianna Fail claim that a survey in the constituency had indicated the party would win two seats only if it adopted a two-candidate strategy. "That's pure bunkum," he said, and this is pure Jackie Healy-Rae.
The Mighty Healy-Rae is published by Marino Books at £7.99.