Doherty’s wife ‘had big role in Haughey bombshell’

SEAN DOHERTY’s wife had a major role in his decision to drop the bombshell that Charles Haughey was fully aware that journalists’ telephones were tapped in the early 1980s, former government minister Máire Geoghegan Quinn has disclosed.

In a major profile of Ms Geoghegan Quinn to be broadcast on TG4 tomorrow night, the former Fianna Fáil TD and Government minister reveals that Maura Doherty encouraged her husband to tell the full truth about the whole affair.

When it became known that the late Mr Doherty, as Justice Minister, authorised the tapping of the phones of two journalists Bruce Arnold and Geraldine Kennedy, he insisted that none of his Cabinet colleagues, including Mr Haughey, were aware of the operation.

But in an astonishing interview on RTÉ’s Nighthawks in 1991, Mr Doherty changed his story and said that Mr Haughey had always been aware that the telephones were tapped. The interview was instrumental in bringing Mr Haughey’s period as Taoiseach and as leader of FF to an end.

In the documentary, Ms Geoghegan Quinn says Maura Doherty prompted the public disclosure, rather than anti-Haughey plotters within FF.

“All this information that Sean had was lying heavily on his shoulders His wife Maura recognised this and told him at one stage that he had to tell the truth.”

The documentary recounts the former Galway west deputy’s 22-year career in Dáil Eireann as well as her subsequent career since 1997 at the European Court of Auditors.

Ms Geoghegan Quinn became the first female senior minister since the foundation of the State when Charles Haughey appointed her as Gaeltacht Minister in 1979. She would later become Communications Minister and Justice Minister.

She portrays her relationship with the late Mr Haughey as a complex one.

She was close to him politically but she says she often bore the brunt of his critical remarks.

She says that after Ireland hosted the Euro Presidency in 1990, she approached him of her own volition and told him it was not time for him to retire. She says he responded by laughing.

The broadcaster and former Government press secretary Sean Duignan tells the programme that Brian Cowen was Albert Reynolds’ first choice as his successor in 1994. However, as he considered Cowen to be too young, he considered Ms Geoghegan Quinn to be the best choice in the interim.

In the subsequent leadership contest, however, Ms Geoghegan Quinn withdrew her candidacy, allowing Bertie Ahern to be elected by acclamation.

“I think I had no chance against Bertie,” she says. “It was very difficult to go against him.”

Others, including Mr Duignan, say that she did not want the top job enough.

“Becoming leader was never my ultimate goal. I did not look into the future too much,” she says.

Ms Geoghegan Quinn says that her proudest achievements included the initial decision to give the green light to an Irish-language television station; her decision to legalise homosexuality in 1993; and her involvement as Justice Minister in the Downing Street Declaration.

MGQ — Aistear Polaitiúil. TG4. December 28, 7.30pm.