Just Mary (18 page)

It seemed that Fianna Fáil was out of the political picture in terms of the forming of a government, but over the Christmas period, matters would change. Attempts were made to start
coalition talks between John Bruton of Fine Gael, Proinsias De Rossa of the Democratic Left and Dick Spring of the Labour Party. These proved abortive quite early on and there was a clear animosity
between John Bruton and the Democratic Left. While this had been ongoing, Albert Reynolds, who was still acting Taoiseach, went to a European meeting in Edinburgh, at which Ireland was to gain a
large slice of the European Social Fund. Before too much of a lacuna could develop, Martin Mansergh had our manifesto ready and informal talks were begun between the Labour Party and Fianna
Fáil.

There were many of us in the party, myself included, who were extremely partial to the idea of an alliance with Labour — and this was ultimately agreed upon. Yet it was clear throughout
the tenure of this new Fianna Fáil/Labour government that it irked Albert Reynolds to have to consult widely with Dick Spring, just as it irked him that the office of An Tánaiste was
occupied by Dick. You see, Reynolds had always belonged to the school of thought that a one-party government was the ideal and that Fianna Fáil should as such have sole tenure.

However, the new coalition worked quite satisfactorily as it turned out, and the two parties pulled together in government well enough. On a more individual level, I found this to be the case
too, and as Minister of State for Labour with responsibility for Consumer Affairs to Ruairi Quinn as Minister for Employment and Enterprise, I was able to enjoy a close and fruitful working
relationship with my senior counterpart. There was never conflict between us and he gave me space on many issues. In relation to this, in fact, I learned from contacts I had within the
parliamentary Labour Party that at party meetings of that period, Ruairi was quite frequently upbraided by members who were saying such things to him as, ‘Mary O’Rourke is here,
she’s there, she’s everywhere — you are giving her far too much leeway and allowing her too much free rein!’ But fortunately Ruairi Quinn is a wise person and he knew that
only by the two of us working together like this would we best be able to serve the country — and so this is what we did.

One area which Ruairi put me in charge of was
FÁS
. The scheme was then in its heyday, and together we worked out a new community employment programme which would
give a boost to
FÁS
projects all around the country. It was I, in fact, who came up with the slogan — ‘
FÁS
has changed the
face of Ireland’ — and indeed it did during that period of 1993 to 1994 also. Quinn was very worried about long-term unemployment and this was the impetus for the whole Community
Employment Project for which I was given full responsibility.

Looking back now, I so enjoyed that period of my involvement with the Community Employment Project and
FÁS
. I worked hard at it and I saw Ireland at its best. All
over the country, community groups conceived their project — which could be anything from, say, tidy town initiatives to local historical research to architectural development — got
their applications together and submitted them to
FÁS
, where they would go through a vetting procedure. Then, if a project was given the go ahead, a number of people
were approved to work on it: they would be taken mostly from the long-term unemployed register. Both Ruairi Quinn and I insisted on rigorous and in-depth training for those who were to be involved
in this way and so, many unemployed people got new skills and a renewed sense of purpose in their lives. Whilst the employees’ payments were small, they were regular, the jobs were structured
and the contracts could be for up to three years’ duration. There were county exhibits, which we visited. There were prize-giving ceremonies in various areas and there was constant
encouragement for the groups to come together and keep in contact. In turn, these projects gave way to a huge flowering in the communities of pride in one’s village or town or area. I feel
there is sorely a need for a decent social history of that period and of the close interaction between
FÁS
and the community groups all over Ireland. The scheme
really did change the face of Ireland, and I was so fulfilled and happy to be part of it. And no better comrades in work could be found than Ruairi Quinn and myself. Years later,
FÁS
was to ‘lose its way’, and now it is broken into different sections, each under the auspices of different Departments.

I cannot leave this subject without mentioning Dr John Lynch, the then Chairperson and Chief Executive of
FÁS
, whom I would in fact in later years appoint as
Chairperson of
CIÉ
. John is one of those public servants to whom not enough credit has been given, in relation to the magnificent work he did during his very
productive time at
FÁS
, and certainly in the two years during which I had responsibility for it. A fine, clever, hardworking man, he always sought only to work
towards enriching and improving the country, and creating as many opportunities as possible for employment and community pride.

As well as Ruairi Quinn, there were other Cabinet Ministers in that government with whom I was very impressed. Among these was our own Fianna Fáil Minister for Justice, Máire
Geoghegan-Quinn. She had been in Albert’s corner in the previous years when they had flounced out of Charlie Haughey’s Cabinet. When Labour were making the arrangements to go into
government with us in 1992, they had said they would not do so if Pádraig Flynn was in Cabinet, hence he was happy to accept the generous offer to become Ireland’s Commissioner for
Social Affairs in Europe, and he sailed off to pastures new. Subsequently, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn became Minister for Justice and proved to be more than capable in the post.

Early on in that two-year Fianna Fáil/Labour regime, Máire brought forward the Bill which finally gave homosexuals their rightful place in society, and which abolished an archaic
law dating back to the nineteenth century. It must be pointed out of course that the government was under duress to make this issue a priority. Senator David Norris had brought his case to Europe
and won, and there was now an onus upon the government to ensure that the ‘crime’ of homosexuality was wiped from the statute books. Máire moved swiftly and clearly and it is to
her credit and the credit of that government that this grossly unfair legislation was made obsolete, and that proper, legal recognition of homosexuality was at last granted.

Mervyn Taylor was the then Minister for Equality and Law Reform and it fell to him to ensure that all instances of discrimination against gay people in the workplace should be erased. As the
Minister of State for Labour Affairs, I was responsible for bringing that piece of legislation through the Seanad and in my own way, I felt very proud to do so and to know that I had contributed in
that sense to a wonderful, modern step forward for Ireland. To this day I still meet or hear from people who were helped by that legislation and who are glad of it. I was delighted to make great
friends within the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (
GLEN
), an organisation which was and is strongly committed to equality in the workplace in all these matters.

In the summer of 1994, however, relations worsened between Dick Spring and Albert Reynolds. An edginess had begun to creep in to their dealings with each other — there was resentment over
the determination of the Labour leader and his party to frequently assert their differences of opinion with their Fianna Fáil colleagues in government, and there was a prickliness on various
other things also. Yet it all ostensibly came to a head over the publication of the Beef Tribunal Report.

There had been an arrangement in place whereby Dick Spring would get a copy of the findings as soon as they were available, and at the same time as Albert. But Albert managed to get them first
and holed himself up in the office with his Press Secretary at the time, Seán Duignan — and neither man would come out or answer the phone to Spring. Meanwhile Dick and his advisors
had to sit outside, waiting until the Taoiseach had finished with the report. It was only once Albert had been through every line with a fine-tooth comb and had ascertained that he had been found
innocent of any misdemeanour that he finally handed the document over to Dick Spring, who was by this time seething, of course. The episode only served to further heighten the tension which already
existed between the two men and which would give way to the full-blown discord which ultimately caused a final split in the coalition. All of this began to seep into the newspapers, via
‘authorised sources’, and one way or another, it was not a pretty scene. There was at one point an effort at rapprochement, and apparently when Albert’s and Dick’s paths
crossed in a hangar of Casement Airport around that time, it was all sweetness and light between them. But not long after that the Brendan Smyth affair broke, which would put the final nail in the
coffin of the coalition.

There is really no need to go into the Smyth case here, I feel, because it has been so well documented elsewhere. Suffice it to say that the blame began to be laid firmly on the shoulders of the
then
AG
, Harry Whelehan. Now Whelehan had baggage, of course — right-wing baggage. The Labour Party essentially distrusted him because of what they saw as his very
conservative disposition and they felt that in some way, he had sought to hide the Brendan Smyth matter and not bring it to the attention of Cabinet or into public view — which, I should
stress, was absolutely untrue.

In the meantime, Albert Reynolds as Taoiseach had proposed making Whelehan the President of the High Court: this was approved at a Cabinet meeting from which Dick Spring and the Labour Ministers
had felt they had no option but to withdraw. Nevertheless, Albert now had the bit between his teeth and up he sailed to Mary Robinson, the then President, to have Harry Whelehan ratified. The
Labour Party kicked up, but to no avail. The pictures of that visit to Áras an Uachtaráin tell their own story: a stony-faced Mary Robinson, a grim Máire Geoghegan-Quinn as
Minister for Justice and a dour Albert Reynolds stand uneasily side-by-side as the necessary documents for the controversial appointment are signed. In the final event, as we know, Whelehan would
serve in his new role for only six days.

It was hardly a surprise when, in the autumn of 1994, Labour decided they wanted out of the coalition. There were frantic efforts between Charlie McCreevy as Minister for Social Welfare, and
Ministers Máire Geoghegan-Quinn and Michael Smith to sort out the matter, but these were all in vain. The problematic issues at hand were so petty that to any external observer they did not
in themselves warrant a break-up — but of course the cited reasons for break-up were merely symptomatic of a much greater malaise between the two parties. The bottom line, as I have
previously indicated, was that Albert did not want to be in a government with any party other than his own, Fianna Fáil, and he greatly resented what I always thought were the proper
concerns of a Labour Party determined that they were not going to be done down by the larger party. Seán Duignan (ex-
RTÉ
), Government Press Secretary at the
time, has written of this period in great detail and in an amusing yet thorough fashion in his book,
One More Spin on the Merry-Go-Round
(Blackwater Press, 1996), which is worth reading
for these episodes alone!

Anyway, there were many discussions and last-ditch efforts to resolve things, and out of these came a new development which seemed to offer hopes for a future between Fianna Fáil and
Labour after all. Formal soundings were sent out between Fianna Fáil and Labour, and it appeared that Labour might be willing to stay in government if there was a new leader in Fianna
Fáil — Bertie Ahern. We all perked up, particularly those of us in the lower ranks, some of whom had worked hard and got on well with our Labour bosses and counterparts, as was the
case with Ruairi Quinn and myself.

The atmosphere of that tense, uncertain time comes back so clearly to me now. There were meetings, sub-meetings and interviews outside government buildings; endless comings and goings. In the
end, it crystallised in Albert Reynolds coming to a Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meeting and resigning as president of the party, ostensibly over the Brendan Smyth affair and what to my
mind was the trumped-up story of a cover-up of what Labour insisted would have been important information for them at Cabinet. In hindsight, this was the beginning of the whole process of the
clerical abuse of children being brought to light, and as such, it was a hugely important episode. Albert went to the Dáil the next day and resigned in a very emotional speech. His wife
Kathleen and some of her family were in the distinguished visitors’ gallery that day, and of course Albert’s voice cracked. One phrase he said was so true and stays with me: ‘You
will manage all the big jumps, but when it comes to the small ones, they’re the ones that catch you.’ And so it was with this. Labour sat well away from Fianna Fáil in the
Dáil chamber, and the whole thing seemed surreal and uncertain.

In the few days which followed, it seemed as if the Bertie Ahern/Dick Spring axis would be consummated and that we would stay in government. We had even been given our portfolios by Bertie: I
had been told I would be Minister for Environment. I was pleased. I liked to be active and to work hard, and it seemed that this appointment would meet those criteria. That is how certain Bertie
was that we would be in government with Labour: he had already prepared the files for each Cabinet member and decided who he was going to appoint in the key positions.

But it was not to be. We all went to bed on the night of 4 December 1994 and woke up the next day to the
Morning Ireland
headlines: ‘A new development has cast doubt on the Dick
Spring/Bertie Ahern burgeoning alliance.’
The Irish Times
carried a similar lead story by Geraldine Kennedy, which seemed to hint at some big new revelation in relation to Harry
Whelehan, although also in very vague terms, but which led to a scattergun reaction among the Labour Party members. Bertie Ahern was in Brussels in his role as Minister for Finance when this
‘story’ broke. While to us, it seemed that it was all most likely nothing more than smoke and mirrors, that night, when Bertie had returned from his trip and was crashed out asleep at
home, he was woken at 2 a.m. by a telephone call from Dick Spring. Dick’s message was clear: ‘I’m sorry, Bertie, it’s all too much — our deal is off.’