Jackie Healy-Rae: In his words
On Charlie Haughey
“I’d have to think twice before I’d die for any man, but if there was anyone worth dying for it was Charlie Haughey.” (He revised his views later after the payment-to-politicians tribunal.)
On nudist beaches
“If people want to go without clothes, why should they be made wear them? It’s up to themselves in a secured beach in Ballybunion. We’re not living in the grey old ages, for God almighty’s sake.”
Asked if Bertie Ahern would not do a deal with him in return for his support in 1997, he replied:
“If that’s the way he he wants it, he can whistle his ducksto water.” !
A threat to pull the plug on the Government and thereby force an election
“The fellas inside there [Dáil Eireann] can be getting oil for the chains of their bikes.”
On being silenced at Fianna Fáil ard fheiseanna
“You could be kept off the rostrum until a time when there wouldn’t be television coverage or when the newspaper reporters and a lot of the crowd had left. Things could be manoeuvred that way and you’d find yourself talking to a near-empty hall. Nearly talking to yourself.”
On Bishop Eamon Casey, who fled to the US after the revelation that he fathered a child with divorced American woman Annie Murphy
“’Tis my honest view that Casey got a raw deal and what the man did was very lightindeed compared with things that emerged about other churchmen afterwards. I think he should come back to Ireland and I’d love to welcome him.”
On the hazards of canvassing
“I had some fierce escapes from dogs, but I nearly bled to death after this cock drove his spurs through my shoe and cut my vein. I bate the bejabers out of him.”
On hard-luck cases
“Some people coming to me are so poor that they couldn’t buy a jacket for a gooseberry.”
On being elected and remaining a TD
“The time had come for me to get in or get out and now that I’m in they’ll find it damn hard to shift me.”
On Fianna Fáil
“One of the big regrets of my life is all the work I did to ensure the election of TDs for Fianna Fáil. It was the most thankless work of all and I often ended up with embarrassing jobs after elections. I was betrayed by the party.”
