A second referendum on Lisbon was set for 2 October. The campaign was difficult, and Labour’s pro-European position was attacked by Sinn Féin and the ultra-left, who had always opposed the European Union and who had campaigned for a no vote in every referendum to date. The Treaty was comfortably passed. I got a congratulatory telephone call from Commission President José Manuel Barroso.
Later the same day, at the Dublin count centre in the RDS, a journalist from the Sunday Tribune asked me for my reaction to documents the Ceann Comhairle, John O’Donoghue, had just released about his expenses. As I hadn’t seen the material, I gave only a vague comment, and undertook to examine the matter.
Earlier in the summer, O’Donoghue had come under pressure when the Sunday Tribune published details of expenses he had claimed for while he had served as Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism. They included the hire of a limousine to transfer him between terminals at Heathrow Airport at a cost of €472, and the hiring of a car at the State’s expense for the duration of the Cheltenham Races. As the recession and cutbacks were impacting hard on the public, there was, understandably, considerable anger at such waste of taxpayer’s money. We heard complaints about the issue repeatedly during our canvass on the Lisbon Treaty. But O’Donoghue stuck to the line that as Ceann Comhairle he could not become involved in a controversy over a matter which arose while he was a minister. He left it to the Department to respond.
The Labour Party had issued a number of statements on the controversy, calling on O’Donoghue to explain his actions. I considered him to be a fair and very competent Ceann Comhairle, and I respected his office and the idea that it ought to be kept out of public controversy if at all possible. However, the latest information related to expenses he had incurred since he was appointed Ceann Comhairle and appeared to me to suggest an entirely unacceptable, sustained pattern of extravagance. I believed that the new revelations would bring the office of Ceann Comhairle, the Dáil, and the body politic into disrepute, and that firm and decisive political action needed to be taken to deal with the controversy. I felt this should be done on an all-party basis, and so I wrote to the leaders of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Sinn Féin and the Green Party, suggesting a meeting of Party Leaders to consider the matter. I asked for a response in advance of the resumption of the Dáil at 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday 6 October.
Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin replied, agreeing to meet; Enda Kenny said he had ‘no objection to such a meeting, but for it to be worthwhile it must be attended by all leaders including the Taoiseach. I am prepared to participate on that basis.’ Brian Cowen replied on the day of the meeting, saying he did not agree to it: ‘In view of the Ceann Comhairle’s stated intention to make proposals to the meeting of the Oireachtas Commission to be held tomorrow, I believe that is the most appropriate forum in which to pursue these issues.’ The Oireachtas Commission is the body which oversees the Houses of the Oireachtas and is chaired by the Ceann Comhairle himself. It meets in private. Five of the eleven members represent the Seanad. In a statement responding to the Taoiseach’s proposal, I pointed out that ‘the Oireachtas Commission is primarily an administrative body. This is a political problem, which must be dealt with through the political process.’
I was disappointed with Cowen’s refusal to have a meeting of Party Leaders. It meant the O’Donoghue issue, already dominating the airwaves, would now have to be raised on the floor of the Dáil. There was growing public anger about it, and it was being made very clear to the Labour Party that people expected the opposition to do its duty and to confront the problem head on.
I travelled to Tralee to address the SIPTU Conference on Monday 7 October and discussed the matter at length with Mark Garrett over dinner in a restaurant in Adare, County Limerick. After my speech on Tuesday morning, members of the press asked me if I intended to raise the O’Donoghue issue at Leaders’ Questions later that afternoon. I confirmed that I did.
On the drive back to Dublin, I got a call from O’Donoghue himself, enquiring as to my intentions. I told him that in the absence of a meeting of Party Leaders, I intended to raise the issue during Leaders’ Questions. He pleaded with me not to, arguing that the Oireachtas Commission was where it should be addressed. I told him I considered it to be too serious at this stage to be passed on to a private committee meeting. It would be unthinkable, I told him, for the opposition not to raise it. He rang a second time pleading with me not to proceed, but again I refused, saying I believed the matter would not go away even if it was referred to the Commission.
In the Dáil, I asked the Taoiseach if he and the parties in government still had confidence in the Ceann Comhairle. The Taoiseach was visibly uncomfortable in his response, and said he regretted that I had raised the issue on the floor of the House, and that it should go to the Oireachtas Commission. He said nothing about the issue of confidence. It was hardly a ringing endorsement for O’Donoghue.
In response, I faced the Ceann Comhairle and said, ‘I regret to say this, but I consider that your position is no longer tenable. I think you will either have to resign or be removed from office. Following the order of business today, it is my intention to meet with my colleagues in the Labour parliamentary party and to recommend to them the tabling of a confidence motion.’ The die was cast. Later that evening O’Donoghue announced his intention to step down. I felt no sense of achievement or satisfaction. It was a necessary outcome, but travelling home that night I felt bad about what I had had to do.
Meanwhile, the economy continued to worsen. The Government was concentrating on the establishment of the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA). Shortly after the budget in December, Brian Lenihan was hospitalised. On 21 December he rang me from his hospital bed to consult with me about the membership of the NAMA Board of Directors, which he was shortly to appoint. He sounded in great form and joked with me about some of the contents of a book about the Workers’ Party, The Lost Revolution, which had just been published. After Christmas, I saw him at Justin Keating’s funeral on a snowy morning at Keating’s farm in Ballymore Eustace. He struggled bravely with his illness and I was truly saddened to hear of his death while I was on an Irish Aid mission to Tanzania in June 2011 and I attended his funeral on my return.
The endgame for the economy came quickly. Ireland’s bond spreads over Germany’s began to widen, as Ireland found it more expensive to borrow on international markets. Greece’s entry into a bailout programme gave rise to speculation that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) might step in and assume control here. But whoever heard of the IMF being called into such a prosperous, developed European state? Few took the prospect seriously, including some Fianna Fáil ministers who appeared on television saying they had heard nothing about Ireland making an application for a bailout. Within the week, however, the Governor of the Central Bank, Dr Patrick Honohan, was on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland telling a shocked nation that the Government intended to apply for a ‘programme of assistance’.
My first meeting with the Troika was on Thursday 25 November 2010 in the Labour Party parliamentary party room in Leinster House. A.J. Chopra of the IMF was accompanied by the other two members of the Troika (IMF, EU and ECB), Istvan Szekely from the European Commission and Klaus Masuch of the European Central Bank (ECB). With me were Joan Burton, Ruairí Quinn, Brendan Howlin, Pat Rabbitte, Colm O’Reardon, Mark Garrett and Jean O’Mahony. The meeting had been requested by the Troika. They wanted to brief the Labour Party on the contents of the bailout programme and how it would work. A.J. Chopra had a kindly bedside manner. The Irish economy was ill, was his line, and while a certain adjustment (11.9 per cent) had already been made, more was required. The financial sector needed to be ‘re-organised’ and ‘de-leveraged’ over a period of time. The public finances needed correction and it all needed to be done and done thoroughly.
We were conscious that within months we might be in government having to work with the Troika, so we were keen to explore what scope there might be for flexibility and for renegotiation of the programme. We emphasised the need for jobs and growth. They seemed positive about this and expressed confidence in the future of the economy, provided, of course, that the required corrective measures were taken.
We met them again on Tuesday 30 November, when they set out for us the deal which they had agreed with the Government, as