Truth in the news... how FF sold out its own in the Irish Press saga

NO ONE should be surprised that Eamon de Valera used the Irish Press for his own purposes, because he saw newspapers as a tool of political power and he had an almost insatiable need for such power.

Indeed, many believe this lust for power led to the Civil War, but he was very different about money matters, with the result that the RTÉ depiction of him on Tuesday's programme on the Irish Press saga was in some ways seriously distorted. When de Valera went to the US to raise money for the Irish Press in the late 1920s he explained that rather than reside in splendid subservience, he would prefer to be independent and live in frugal comfort. To materially-minded people, this may seem like sentimental twaddle, but it was a romanticised vision that had its own appeal. For those who believed in de Valera, there was something compelling and realistic about his inner vision espousing a dream of attainable comfort rather than the fantasy of unimaginable affluence.

Fianna Fáil appealed strongly to the underprivileged by advocating the redistribution of unutilised land and a more equitable distribution of the country's wealth to alleviate the kind of conditions that were evident even on the streets outside Leinster House. "One evening," de Valera told the Dáil, "I happened to be walking along Merrion Square about five or six o'clock and there I saw little children with their hands stuck down in the bins that are put outside doors."

The daily press was unanimously opposed to Fianna Fáil, so de Valera felt seriously handicapped in his efforts to appeal to the electorate. "There is nothing so important for Ireland as a newspaper that will champion her freedom," he told a New York press conference in December 1927. During six weeks in the US he managed to raise $80,000 for a new national newspaper. He returned the following December and spent almost six months in the country trying to raise a further $500,000.

"The harm that is being done to our country through the lack of an independent, constructive and critical national journal is incalculable," he told a 1929 gathering in New York. "The only effective remedy is to provide an alternative produce an Irish paper which the Irish people will spontaneously support because it stands for Ireland and Irish interests, and is representative of their own thought and ideals." His message obviously had the necessary resonance, because he returned home with sufficient funds to establish the Irish Press.

When France, Belgium, Poland and Hungary defaulted on their war debt payments to the US in December 1932, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that Britain would be paying its $95 million on time, even though it meant asking parliament for a supplementary estimate to cover the Irish reneging on land annuities payments. The land annuity dispute was thereby equated with defaulting on war debts in the front page headline of the New York Times next day.

De Valera responded with his own propaganda stroke by announcing the repayment of the Irish Republican loan raised in the US during the War of Independence. Although that money would not be due until Ireland was recognised as an independent republic, he said it was being repaid immediately with a 25% premium added.

The ultimate cost to the Government was £500,000 and those people who got the money were invited to support the Irish Press. Enough money was thereby contributed to secure the newspaper's future, but most of those people probably never got any further financial return. The de Valeras essentially got away with this betrayal of trust because those people probably never expected any monetary return when they gave to the republican loan in the first place. They would have then essentially have turned over the unexpected return from the loan to the Irish Press in the same spirit of donation, rather than investment.

WAS there a difference between Charles Haughey accepting money from Ben Dunne and the de Valeras taking the Irish Press money for themselves? Of course, there was a huge difference. Ben gave Charlie the money for himself, whereas de Valera collected for a newspaper that was supposed to serve the national interest. In 1962 de Valera handed over this media empire to his own family. Did he think he was handing it over to them in some kind of trust for the nation? One way or another, it was a gross betrayal of trust. Maybe his descendants betrayed his trust, but ultimately it was he who betrayed the trust of those who gave him the money in the first place.

While the RTÉ programme raised important issues about how members of the de Valera family took control of the Irish Press, there was something disturbingly unconvincing about the contribution of the long-time de Valera cheerleader, Tim Pat Coogan, who has adopted a very different attitude since his parting with the Irish Press.

For all his faults, de Valera was certainly not a financially avaricious politician, and that should have been brought out, instead of leaving a contrary impression. "I would review every salary of over a thousand pounds a year," de Valera promised while in opposition in the 1920s. "I hold that it is unjust that such salaries should be paid by the community whilst a large section of it are unable to find employment or to get bread."

One of his first acts upon coming to power in 1932 was to reduce his own salary by 40% from £2,500 to £1,500 a year, and all ministerial salaries were reduced by 33% from £1,500 to £1,000. He espoused frugal comfort, and he never lived ostentatiously himself, even if he did stay at the Waldorf Astoria while in New York in 1919.

Throughout his long life he never acquired the flamboyant trappings of wealth. There was no flashy car, yacht, racehorses, or aircraft, and he never owned a lavish estate with a palatial mansion. When he was about to retire in 1973, he did ask for more money and he got his pension increased by over 475%, because he was worried about supporting himself and his wife in nursing homes.

However, this increase in his pension was really a reflection of his own frugality in office, because it only brought his pension up to £5,706 a year.

This pension was for two full terms as President, 23 years as a Cabinet minister, and over 40 years as a Dáil deputy. It was only a fraction of the €112,000 pension that his successor Mary Robinson would get less than 25 years later, even though she did not serve even one full term in the Park. It is also only a fraction of what his grandson is currently being paid out of Irish Press funds each year.

The betrayal of the trust of the Irish Press investors may be attributed to the failing of one old man and the greed of his family, but they have been allowed to get away with it due to the indifference of a succession of Fianna Fáil-led governments. Thus the ultimate betrayal is that by Fianna Fáil of its own most dedicated supporters.