Haughey threatened my life, McCreevy
Mr McCreevy said that at one point the police were concerned about him.
“As far as I can remember, my wife had received phone calls to say I’d be knocked off coming down the Naas Road, I think they kept an eye on me.”
The former Finance Minister said: “It got very hot. The whole country was in uproar ... There were great hostilities and a lot of it was very, very, very unpleasant. Some TDs buckled under the pressure health-wise ... It was a terrible period.”
Mr McCreevy was among the “Club of 22” backbenchers who unsuccessfully attempted to oust Mr Haughey as Fianna Fáil leader during a series of heaves against him in the early 1980s. When contacted by the Irish Examiner yesterday to respond to Mr McCreevy’s claims, Mr Haughey put down the phone.
Mr McCreevy made his comments in an extensive interview with RTE’s Week in Politics programme. The former Finance Minister also revealed it was in the interest of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern that he take up the post of EU Commissioner in Brussels last summer.
But Mr McCreevy said he refused to accede to the requests from the Taoiseach “hundreds of times” when he was Finance Minister. And he often ignored advice offered to him when he was Finance Minister, Mr McCreevy told RTE.
“I have a fair understanding of what makes the Irish economy work - there are economists and advisers whose views I take on certain issues. Others I would not give them a job going to the toilet at the bottom of the stairs - grand fellas and grand women but quite useless,” he said.He revealed one of the lowest points in his political career was the sacking of the late Brian Lenihan during the 1990 presidential election campaign.
“I was as involved as anyone else and we all slithered away from it and we blamed Charlie Haughey for it,” Mr McCreevy said.
