Apart from recording the events of those years in my autobiography, All In A Life, I have not felt disposed to expend effort on defending the economic record of the governments I led between 1981 and 1987.
There seemed to be a lot to be said for allowing the cycle of critical evaluation to run its course. And, recently, there has been evidence that a stage of reappraisal may now be beginning, for we have recently had several independent reassessments of the events of the 1980s.
Thus at the end of last month, in the Sunday Tribune, in the course of a sharply critical evaluation of Charles Haughey, Stephen Collins described how "he recklessly undermined the economy between 1979 and 1982" and "behaved disgracefully in Opposition between 1982 and 1987 acting directly against the national interest in opposing necessary economic measures".
And later he went on to add that "his much-lauded role in economic management after 1987 would not have been necessary if he hadn't helped to wreck it in the first instance and done everything he possibly could to prevent the FitzGerald government putting the pieces back together again".
And Stephen Collins concluded his article with a favourable reference to Charles Haughey's opponents within Fianna Fail: George Colley and Des O'Malley - and to Dick Spring and myself, who, in his words, "struggled in Government to save the country from going over the brink of economic doom to which it had been dragged".
Moreover, in an article in the Sunday Business Post on social partnership, John Horgan, former chairman of the Labour Court, pointed out: "The period 1984 to 1987 . . . was the period in which prices and wages were brought under control and the incidence of strikes was reduced to historically low levels. It may also be seen as the time when the foundations were laid that made possible the negotiation of a centralised wage and tax deal."
These reassessments have encouraged me to recall some of the key features and events of that period as they emerge from the official statistics.
Following the first oil crisis of 1973-1974, which had huge inflationary effects and forced governments worldwide to borrow on an unprecedented scale, our Exchequer borrowing had by 1977 been cut back to 9.5 per cent of GNP, and inflation had been reduced to 6 per cent. But by 1979, under Jack Lynch's government and before the second oil crisis, Exchequer borrowing had risen again to the same level as in 1975, viz 12.5 per cent, and inflation had more than doubled to over 13 per cent.
And by the time Charles Haughey's government fell in June 1981 Exchequer borrowing for the current year was forecast by the Department of Finance to reach almost 20 per cent, and on the basis of current tax and spending plans to rise to 21 per cent in 1982. As a result of these events, between 1977 and 1982 the level of national debt had trebled. Moreover, inflation had rocketed to over 20 per cent.
That is the factual record of those years from 1977 to 1981.
Three weeks after the change of government in mid-1981 an emergency Budget had cut borrowing from 20 per cent to 15.5 per cent of GNP in that year - and the Budget introduced in the following January would, if passed, have reduced it much further in 1982. However, that Budget was defeated and, despite the critical financial situation, the incoming Fianna Fail government increased both current and capital spending provisions and also dropped some proposed tax measures, purporting to fill part of the gap by a once-off bringing forward of tax revenue from 1983.
As a result, when I returned to office at the end of 1982, instead of 1982 borrowing being further reduced from the 15.5 per cent of GNP achieved in 1981, it had actually risen again to above the 1981 level.
The Coalition's 1983 Budget cut projected current spending by 2 per cent and raised taxation by 5 per cent. And the outcome of this was a further significant reduction of borrowing, from 16.3 per cent of GNP to 14 per cent. And, by the time 1987 was reached, the Budget proposed by the outgoing Fine Gael government (which was implemented virtually unchanged by the incoming Fianna Fail government) had reduced the Exchequer borrowing rate to fractionally over 10 per cent of GNP.
This means that well over half of the reduction in borrowing, from a threatened 21.5 per cent of GNP in 1982 to 1.5 per cent of GNP in 1989, was in fact accomplished by the two Fine Gael-Labour coalitions of 1981-82 and 1982-87.
In placing this on the record I would not in any way diminish the role Ray MacSharry played in this process of fiscal adjustment. It is, of course, true that the Budget he introduced in March 1982, under pressure from Charles Haughey, was regressive and inflationary, setting back considerably the process of getting our public finances into order.
But as soon as Ray MacSharry had put this episode behind him and had come to grips with the full reality of our economic and financial crisis, he set about preparing the way for a tough Fianna Fail Budget in 1983.
However, with the disappearance of Ray MacSharry from the Fianna Fail front bench early in 1983, Charles Haughey in Opposition reverted to his earlier inflationary stance. From 1983 through to 1986 he consistently opposed measures to reduce the borrowing rate, and dismissed as "Thatcherism" all efforts to get our financial affairs in order.
From the moment that Charles Haughey had resiled from the stance adopted in his January 1980 television address, right up to the 1987 election campaign, he had persistently dodged financial reality. But now, because he would be coming to power as late as March 10th, I could ensure that he would have little choice but to adopt the tough Budget we had prepared.
And so it turned out. With Ray MacSharry again in the Finance driving seat, the Budget which, after the departure of Labour, the short-lived Fine Gael caretaker government had presented to the people in the election campaign was in fact adopted with little modification.
And, with that tough Budget behind him, during the following two years Ray MacSharry set about completing the task of reducing borrowing by the further 8 per cent-9 per cent of GNP that was necessary in order to bring it to an acceptable level; a process that involved unpopular cuts in current spending, but which had the general support of Fine Gael in Opposition.
In thus completing the process of getting our finances into order, MacSharry had the advantage of the progress that had been made by the 1982-1987 Coalition in respect of other aspects of the economy. Thus, by 1986 the current balance-of-payments deficit, which in 1981 had reached a terrifying 15 per cent of GNP, had been completely eliminated. Inflation had been reduced from over 20 per cent to as little as 3 per cent. And, through tough negotiations with the trade unions, the rate of increase in pay had been brought down from 17 per cent a year to 5 per cent
Moreover, as John Horgan has recently pointed out, all this had been achieved with a huge reduction in the number of days lost through industrial action. In 1979 this figure had reached almost 1,500,000, and in 1982 was still running at almost 450,000. But by 1987 it been cut to little more than half the 1982 level.
Finally, the fall in employment, which had been the most damaging feature of the economic and financial crisis precipitated by the 1977-1981 government, had already been halted by 1985, as much as two years before the 1987 change of government.
Nevertheless the performance of the two coalition governments of the 1981-1987 period is, of course, open to criticism in a number of respects.
Thus, in relation to the current deficit, I chose at the outset to move cautiously, cutting it to £900 million, rather than to the figure of £750 million favoured by the Department of Finance. I took this course because I feared that more drastic action might precipitate an even more severe recession than that which was already under way. Second, it can certainly be argued that during our period in government we should have undertaken the kind of current spending cuts that were later made by Ray MacSharry. But what cannot reasonably be argued is that our economy was left in bad shape in 1987 - or, as some have argued, that in that year Fianna Fail inherited a "bankrupt economy".
Nothing could be further from the truth. By that time inflation and extravagant pay claims had been brought fully under control. The balance of payments crisis had been totally resolved. Employment had started to rise again. And well over half of the excessive borrowing that had faced my first government in 1981 had been wiped out.
Having now put on the record here for the first and last time the facts of what actually happened in those years, I am content to leave the rest to the historians.