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The Lying Game

It may have been billed as the last stand of CHARLES J. HAUGHEY, but no-one told the man himself. Last week at Dublin Castle, having been hauled before the McCracken payments-to-politicians tribunal in an attempt to get him to finally explain his business relationship with Ben Dunne, the former Taoiseach indulged in a faintly pathetic display of obfuscating, wheedling and stalling. LIAM FAY was one of those looking on eagerly from the public gallery. This is his report.

Liam Fay, 15 Oct 1997

With the fluency of a stuck record, he persisted with his mantras about being unaware of such matters, fearing the consequences of disclosure and my trusted friend and advisor. It got to the stage where he was chanting the words Des Traynor so often that I wondered if he was suffering from some peculiarly virulent strain of the DTs.

As the two-hour testimony wore on, the opposing factions in the viewing room became ever-more raucous, their approbation and guffaws getting louder and more melodramatic by the minute. Denis McCullough was not conducting his interrogation in jugular vein. At times, he was more coaxing than accusatory, speaking to the witness in the same tone of voice that a photographer might use to persuade a topless model into more provocative poses.

Nevertheless, everybody felt that they had seen and heard enough to allow them come to a firm decision. It was simply a case of whether you believed Charlie Haughey or whether you had been listening to him.

As the public poured out onto the cobblestones of the Dublin Castle courtyard, after Charlie had completed his evidence, the extemporaneous reviews came thick and fast:

. . . The hard-necked oul bollocks . . .

He was brilliant, he used no notes and didn t even take a single sip of water.

Magisterial!

. . . Jail the lying swine . . .

There were, naturally, many other feelings expressed but I d stopped listening; I was too busy scrutinising the faces of those I d already heard voice their opinion, hoping to ascertain what a person who uses the term Magisterial! in everyday conversation looks like.

We hung around the courtyard for over 30 minutes waiting for Charlie to finish his complimentary tea and sandwiches and to come outside for what we were told would be a brief photo-call. It was lunchtime now and a couple of hundred passing rubbernecks had joined the throng. Security personnel shepherded the heaving swarm back from the entrance, and sealed us off behind rope barriers.

Bobbing around the prow of the crush was a small, spinning top of a man, a Dubbalin pensioner, in a tan windbreaker, who was simultaneously pursuing about six separate quarrels with maybe a dozen different people. His dilated pupils oval and gleaming like twin miraculous medals, he was shouting and gesticulating indignantly in all directions.



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