An Irish honours system would be a one-way road to further corruption

AFTER Ireland’s defeat to Italy in the quarter-final of the 1990 World Cup, Charlie Haughey went down on the field to salute the Irish crowd, but he was roundly booed.

He was having a bad day. When he and his guests landed at Rome airport in the executive jet, he was kept waiting for half an hour, as the Irish ambassador was needed to clear the plane. Haughey prided himself on not being late, so ambassador Robin Fogarty’s tardiness was an insult.

When Haughey returned to power in 1987, one of his first acts was to move the European Communities Committee under the aegis of his own department and reorganise it. Hitherto, it had been chaired by the deputy secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, the same Fogarty who was effectively banished to Rome. So he was not now about to dance attention on the little fella from Kinsealey. His excuse was that he had been “busy at his desk”.