The narrowing of his mind-set also had an impact on his political ambition. He had, for a time, flirted with the idea of challenging Brian Cowen to become Taoiseach. Indeed, around the autumn of 2010, he more than flirted with it and deliberated aloud on the mechanism of how this might be achieved with many – in fact, too many – in the parliamentary party and elsewhere. Lenihan accepted, indeed, at times, touted the analysis of the growing number of Cowen critics in the party that failings in political leadership and disastrous communication were contributing to the national sense of crisis. Lenihan felt a less partisan, more coherent, more media-friendly and more popular leader would not only be in Fianna Fáil’s interest, but also in the national interest, at least until the next election.
When encouraged to act on this analysis, Lenihan vacillated. Among his stock answers to those who suggested he should lead a push was that the Minister for Finance challenging the Taoiseach, at such a time of economic uncertainty, would precipitate a constitutional crisis. He was also uncertain he would succeed in toppling Cowen and then it was simply too late. A factor which may have impacted on his prospects of success in a leadership challenge, but also on his attitude to initiating such a challenge, was that he could only ever be a stop-gap leader. Lenihan also had a loyalty to Cowen, who had promoted him and who, whatever his failings in Finance and as Taoiseach, had supported the tough decisions necessary to address the crisis.
Brian was giddy, almost childlike, about the invitation to speak at the Michael Collins commemoration at Béal naBláth. The Cork South West Fine Gael TD, Jim O’Keeffe, had sought to clear the way by enquiring in advance whether Brian would accept such an invitation if it was issued. He accepted instantly. O’Keeffe swore him to secrecy for a few weeks, but Brian could not resist sharing the historic news. That sunny day in August 2010, at the site of Collins’s assassination, was the highpoint of Brian Lenihan’s political career and of his public standing. Brian had worked carefully on his speech, but the fact that he was giving the oration was actually the most significant statement. For a long time after he spoke, people came up to him in small groups to shake his hand, have their photograph taken with him and to wish him well. He was almost the last to leave – fired up, visibly tired, but clearly touched.
The last paragraphs of the Béal na Bláth speech sat uncomfortably with the rest of the text because they dealt with very contemporary banking issues. They were inserted late in the day at a time when Lenihan felt he needed to publicly address the worsening picture of the banking debt, which had emerged over that summer. Brian always felt that it was inevitable Ireland would need to turn to the IMF-ECB-EU Troika for some level of support. He hoped it would be a less intrusive form of support and that it would wait until the spring of 2011. Events overtook him. Ireland was backed into a corner by the ECB in particular and, with money fleeing the country, he was bounced into a bailout.
The events surrounding the announcement and negotiation of the bailout are recounted by some of the participants in later essays in this book. The shambolic way in which the entry into negotiations with the Troika was communicated to the Irish people is something for which Lenihan himself must carry some of the responsibility. He contended afterwards that he had warned other ministers to be careful in their utterances during those crucial days, but failing to keep all ministers fully informed, ideally by means of a special cabinet meeting over that crucial weekend or on that Monday after stories about an Irish bailout began circulating in the international press was wrong, and not only in hindsight.
As the economists Donal Donovan and Antoin Murphy acknow- ledge in their 2013 book, The Fall of the Celtic Tiger, the motives for delaying the public announcement of a bailout were benign. Lenihan was hoping to obtain some alternative support mechanism short of a formal bailout or hoped, at least, that delaying a formal letter of application would strengthen the Government’s hand in the subsequent negotiations. The manner in which it was mishandled did much to compound the impact on an already traumatised Irish public.
The bizarre series of event, which subsequently gave rise to the collapse of Brian Cowen’s government, are also recounted in this book. Lenihan was bemused and, at times, angry about the turn of some of these events. He had known, once Ireland had entered the bailout programme, that the Government could not last long, as its popular mandate had dissipated. His primary focus during this time was to get as much of the budgetary process as possible completed before the election was called. In doing so, he bequeathed a great gift to the new government and made a significant contribution to Ireland’s ultimate emergence from the bailout in a relatively short period.
Brian Lenihan’s decision to contest the leadership of Fianna Fáil after Brian Cowen’s resignation was curious. He talked, it seems, to none of those to whom he usually turned for advice that crucial afternoon, but, it seems, after holding back from challenging, he now felt obliged to contest the vacancy. It was a pointless exercise always doomed to failure. Micheál Martin, who had resigned a week earlier when his challenge to Cowen’s leadership had failed, was set to be the beneficiary, such as it was, of the Fianna Fáil leader’s resignation. Lenihan had been damaged by association with the bailout and by suggestions that he had conspired against the Taoiseach.
When I did get hold of him early that evening, he was dealing with departmental matters, but he realised that he needed a base from which to do some leadership campaigning. I invited him out to our house, in Ranelagh, where he spent three hours simultaneously negotiating a new timescale for the Finance Bill with the Greens and ringing Fianna Fáil TDs seeking their support for his leadership candidacy. In most cases, he was calling his party colleagues several hours after Micheál Martin or the other leadership contenders. Feeling a need for momentum in his already stalled and doomed leadership bid, he decided to call a press conference for the following morning. I worked up some words for that press event – the only lines I had ever written for him in fourteen years – and Cathy Herbert reworked them with us over email. In framing those few short pages, it was apparent to all three of us that Brian, damaged by the bailout and limited by his diagnosis, had little to offer Fianna Fáil TDs and Senators as leader, except to front a containment mission in the forthcoming election.
The following Wednesday Micheál Martin won, as predicted, and he did so decisively. There was further humiliation for Lenihan in the fact that a cohort of Brian Cowen loyalists threw their support behind Eamon Ó Cuiv in the leadership vote (not at Brian Cowen’s instigation, it should be said) and Lenihan was nudged into third place.
Brian Lenihan decided to stay and fight the 2011 election, although he knew Fianna Fáil would be out of power and he himself would struggle to be re-elected. He was privately critical of other senior Fianna Fáil figures, who he felt had walked off the pitch in the final stages of the match. He enjoyed that one last campaign and had a sense of reconnecting with his voters in what he used to call ‘the barony of Castleknock,’ but he was philosophical throughout, as Marie Louise O’Donnell captures in her essay in this volume. Brian was touched by the fact that the voters re-elected him and took it as a mark of the regard in which he was held locally. He knew also that there was an element of sympathy in that support: the voters of Dublin West had decided to shield him from one final blow.
For the short few months in opposition after the 2011 election, Brian was sanguine. He enjoyed the additional time at home greatly. He continued to visit Leinster House regularly and jokingly reminded colleagues and opponents that he had not yet gone away.
In late April 2011, we had our last chat in person over a quiet cup of tea in the Westbury Hotel. His form was very good, his mind was sharp, but his physical presentation was weak. Among the things we discussed that afternoon was his need to get down on paper his own account of some of the events of the previous