The Mary Harney Interview

It was at this time, for example, that she met Jack Lynch who made her one of his personal nominees to the Senate in 1977 – which houses of the Oireachtas, her present party is now in favour of abolishing. When the latter departed after Charlie Haughey had successfully wrested the leadership of the Fianna Fail party two years later, Mary Harney immediately became identified as a party dissident, referring to the change of leadership as, effectively, a "change in government".

Following their expulsion from FF, Dessie O’Malley and Mary Harney last December formed the Progressive Democrats which as a result of defections now boasts five sittings TDs. Though only six months old the party is organised in all but three of the 41 constituencies, claims a registered membership of 20,000, and held its first National Conference in Dublin the weekend before last.

It was in the wake of that conference and the long-awaited unveiling of the PDs’ policies that I spoke with Mary Harney.

Michael O’Higgins: Of the politicians you met when you were at Trinity, would it be fair to say Jack Lynch made the biggest impression on you?

Mary Harney: Yes. In 1977 in joining a political party – you could say I had a choice of joining a whole host of things – but essentially I had a choice of joining FF or FG. To a large degree I was influenced by my own family circumstances and background. So I suppose no matter what the circumstances in FG I probably would never have joined. But I like to think I made a rational decision. The choice was between Liam Cosgrave whom I thought was extremely conservative, and Jack Lynch who was moderate and encouraging young people. I admired his approach to politics generally: I thought he was an honest man and all the rest of it.

M O’H: Someone once said he regarded you as the daughter he never had?

MH: No. I never ever heard him say that. (laughs)

M O’H: There isn’t that sort of closeness then?

MH: I meet him from time to time. I am very fond of himself and his wife. They are lovely people. There are a number of things I like about him. I like his humility: he is not in any way arrogant or stand-offish with the attitude of ‘I am a former Taoiseach’ or whatever. If you didn’t know he was the former Taoiseach, you’d think he had been an ordinary man with an ordinary life and that’s very much the way he is still.

M O’H: Do you think the sort of qualities you admire in him are essentially too nice to last in politics?

MH: No. I think he has qualities which are essential in politicians. I think he has been very badly treated by the FF party. Still is. I feel sore about that. I saw between ’77 and ’79 when I became a senator how people got rid of him, particularly those who got in as a result of his successful campaign in ’77, and how they literally knifed him in the back, how they were subsequently the people to stand up and talk about loyalty. When he was retired, and no longer Taoiseach a lot of people dismissed him. They didn’t want to know about him anymore.

M O’H: But surely within every party there is going to be a contest for the leadership and somebody is going to win and somebody is going to lose.

MH: Yes. But I don’t think there is anything as bitter as what I saw in FF – literally the hatred some people had for Jack Lynch. The fact was that every time there was a contest for leadership he was blamed for it. He was supposed to be behind it, when all the time the man had absolutely nothing to do with it.

The party never commemorated him in any way. I am not making a big issue of this. He certainly wouldn’t. But I feel he was badly treated, badly let down, and I think it reflects badly on the people who did it.

M O’H: From the earliest stages of that change in leadership, you were quite vocal in your criticism. At one stage you said it amounted to a "change in government".

MH: Well I don’t know if I used words like that. Certainly it was like being in a different party almost instantly. In 1979 I had no strong views against Charlie Haughey. As Minister for Health I respected what he did. He was extremely efficient, very thorough in his approach and gave an extremely good back-up service to TDs and Senators. The 1970 Arms Trial meant absolutely nothing to me. I was 15 when and still at school. I didn’t hold grudges because of that. But what I saw subsequently, to put it mildly, put me off.

M O’H: At what stage did your relationship with Charlie Haughey start deteriorating on a personal basis?

MH: All I ever had with Charlie Haughey are a few brief conversations to do with stuff in the party or something. Usually when he was telling me off. I don’t think I have ever had a social chat with him in my life.

M O’H: Did he reprimand you personally?

MH: There were a number of times when he made his views known to me very clearly as to what he thought of me.

M O’H: How did he express those views?

MH: There was the day in March of ’82, he was appointing his government and junior ministers. He had been looking for me and phoned my office. Tom Fahy and a couple of other TDs were there and they went running around the Dail looking for me.

He was only calling in people that day he was appointing. Everybody said congratulations. I went up and he said I suppose you think you are going to be appointed – and I said ‘No’.

And he went on about how silly I was and that I was associating with the wrong people; how I’d have a bright future if I towed the line. All this stuff. We had harsh words I remember. He was telling me I was petty and silly and schoolgirlish. I was telling him you are not so big yourself: you struck half the TDs off your Christmas card list. That was the level of discussion. The man was only Taoiseach two days at the time. That went on for about half an hour.

M O’H: Do you think he deliberately chose that day to humiliate you?

MH: Well, he didn’t humiliate me. I was quite amused by it. But what struck me was, how strange it was that a man who had been Taoiseach for a couple of days had the time for what I would regard as totally frivolous silly carry-on. All he wanted to do was to put the boot in and reprimand me and to make sure he left me in no doubt as to what he thought of me.

When I said to him about the Christmas cards, it just absolutely amazed me. He went to great pains to assure me that he hadn’t struck me off the list and that everybody else had got one. And I said ‘No they didn’t’ and started naming off the people who hadn’t either. It was a tradition in the party. And it was all very silly. He rings up Dessie O’Malley in my presence and says ‘Hello Des, this is Charlie Haughey. Did I send you a Christmas card?’ And of course Dessie O’Malley is in his office wondering what all this is about (laughs). So he said ‘you didn’t actually’. So he just went berserk.

Anyway two weeks later the story broke that Dick Burke had been appointed Commissioner. He had told the FG parliamentary party that morning eh wasn’t taking it, but then changed his mind in the afternoon There was to be an announcement in the Dail at quarter to tour. About ten minutes before the scheduled announcement I got a call to go to the Taoiseach’s office All he wanted to do was to assure me that he had sent me a Christmas card. He had a list of names on a typed sheet of paper with their names ticked off. And I thought that anyone who can go into that sort of detail on a day like that, you’d wonder about their priorities.

But despite what he might think I wasn’t his most bitter opponent by any means. When Charlie McCreevey put down his motion of no confidence I was totally against it, and told McCreevey at the time. I could never say I knew Charlie Haughey very well but what disturbed me was the kind of people he seems to promote, the kind of standards he is prepared to accept and the kind of people he is prepared to keep down.

M O’H: If you meet him on the corridor do you acknowledge each other?

MH: I don’t meet him very often. Sometimes he says hello. Sometimes he doesn’t. I’d like to have a reasonably good personal relationship with everybody. There’s nobody I wouldn’t talk to or like to be able to have a drink with. I think people should appreciate people’s differences. That’s not the way it is in Irish politics unfortunately. People in FF like me became isolated and made feel like a leper. No one was supposed to come near you. If they did they were reprimanded. I remember after one election being very friendly with a particular TD who was newly elected, and he was told ‘if you are seen with her a lot you won’t get far in this party’. That was quite common. It’s an extraordinary way to behave. That’s the way it is. That’s how bitter the whole thing became.

M O’H: What was it that attracted you to Dessie O’Malley?

MH: Well again, I never new Dessie O’Malley when I came into the party. He was a minister. There is always a big gap between senators and ministers, or even TDs and ministers. Two things struck me: I think he has tremendous courage, to say what’s right and wrong. In this country, in politics, so few people would be prepared to say ‘that chair should be here instead of there’, to make simple decisions never mind major ones. I liked his approach to the North, the economy, and social legislation.

M O’H: At what point did the PDs come into existence? Was it well organised in advance of the formal launch last December?

MH: When Dessie O’Malley was finally expelled in February of last year, I and others had encouraged him along this road of starting a new party. A poll was done last April by Barrath O’Tuamaith which indicated that 30% of the people were well disposed toward the idea. We estimated that if one in three voted for it that would be a huge percentage. Des O’Malley initially took the view that it could be an emotional reaction to his expulsion. There had been a lot of parties before and these parties had come and gone. He is an extremely cautious individual, unlike me who would rush straight in without thinking half of the time. So he wanted to wait. I went to America for two months on a State department trip. I met him again in September. Again while he was positively disposed to the idea, he wasn’t by any means certain.

I think what clinched it finally was he had an accident in November, as a result of which he should certainly have been badly injured if not dead – the car was in bits afterwards. I think it was probably during his time in hospital that he decided. He said to himself: ‘I could have been killed. I’ll go ahead with this!’

We got together with the group who was planning it. I was very keen, as they were, to go before Christmas. In hindsight it was a good time. We literally arranged all the details in two weeks.

M O’H: How do you account for the fact that before the party had one single policy it was up there with 27% in the opinion polls?

MH: The policies of a political party in my view – having been in one before and closely examined the policies of all the others – matter little: it’s the will to implement whatever they stand for. Firstly there was support for someone leading a new departure who had credibility. It is the overall philosophy that matters rather than whether you are going to pay £5 here or £10 there. I appreciate that policy in detail important but if people don’t support your overall philosophy, the best policies in the world won’t win your support. The Workers’ Party may have fantastic policies on many issues but because their overall philosophy is not subscribed to by very many people their support is low.

And what is the overall philosophy of the Progressive Democrats?

It’s z breakaway from the old civil war divide. It has brought people from FF and FG together in one party. We have noted that much of our support for our party is coming from FG. In terms of membership, it is down the middle.

Would these be the people who constituted the liberal FG middle-class vote?

It would be a number of things. Young people in particular. The polls indicate that between the socio-economic groups there is only a marginal difference as one goes up and down the groups. There is no marked difference. Possibly better educated people, yes.

M O’H: The Younger Urban Professionals? The Yuppies?

MH: I wouldn’t call them the young urban professionals. We have an awful lot of people who aren’t professionals. They are people who want an opportunity. They want a reward for what they do. They see they can get it elsewhere and they don’t see why they can’t get it here, and I agree with them.

M O’H: What is the PD policy on Social Welfare?

MH: Our policy is it should only go to those in need. The State shouldn’t subsidise those who are better off. We should have a more selective system. Why should people across the board get children’s allowance?

M O’H: What about in relation to those on the dole?

MH: Those are people in need, of course. And they should be looked after. But what they should be given more than anything else is an opportunity to get out of the situation they are in. This idea that all people want on the dole is welfare is only daft.

M O’H: Cllr. Michael Kearns at the National Conference speaking from the platform put forward the view that to pay people for not working is wrong.

MH: Yes I agree with him.

M O’H: So the payment of dole money is wrong?

MH: The payment of dole for doing nothing is wrong in principle in my view.

M O’H: What then should they be doing for their money?

MH: I think there is so much that needs to be done in this country. In many government departments we re told that there is a huge shortage of staff. In the local authority I am on in Dublin Co. Council there is a huge shortage of manpower for various community activities like helping in newly developed areas in newly developed community projects. The Authority can’t afford to employ those people because they don’t have the resources to do so. It would be much better, particularly for young people, many of whom would want to work and who will otherwise become unemployable. I am not saying all the 230,000 could be looked after in that way but there is a lot of them who could. The basic discipline of getting up in the morning and doing something useful is a good thing.

M O’H: The same Councillor also referred to the claimants of Social Welfare as the "needy" – a rather Dickensian term I would have thought.

MH: With respect I think you are being over-sensitive to the words used.

M O’H: It’s stigmatic and I think possibly insulting to the 232,000 in receipt of Social Welfare.

MH: I think throughout this country all kinds of words are used to describe people who are unemployed, who are disadvantaged and on the margins of society, and I think a lot of the words used to describe those people are inappropriate. These people are a priority in any society and when the State has money to share it obviously goes to those in need. But it’s not just a question of money. The assumption that those people who are disadvantaged in Ireland want money and money and money is not the case. In many cases what they need is an education to help them out of the system they have been accustomed to. There’s so much that can be done rather than this attitude of ‘when you give them money that it’s the end of the problem’ – which it is not. It’s demeaning to those on Social Welfare who are continually made feel there is nothing more for them except handouts all the time and the answer is giving them more money when what most of them want is an opportunity.

M O’H: Would you be in favour of those who have been on the dole for more than a year having to account for why they haven’t got a job?

MH: No, I would not. It’s quite obvious why they haven’t got a job. But I am in favour of ensuring those claiming unemployment benefit are genuinely unemployed. If we have massive fraud in social welfare, it means those who should be getting more can’t, because the same amount of money is spread over a wider number of people. There is o doubt there are many people working on building sites and trades who are double-jobbing, or whatever the phrase is for people who are claiming unemployment at the same time. While people are abusing the system you are not going to be able to do anything for those deserving of help: people like widows and the elderly who don’t have the physical capacity to abuse the system and who would be caught too easily.

M O’H: What about politicians, who in addition to their largely tax-free salaries and expenses get £10 a day attendance money for ‘signing in’ – something for which they are obliged to produce absolutely nothing?

MH: There are a number of things I could say about politicians’ salaries. I think it is wrong and immoral for politicians to pay tax on a different basis to anyone else. But so too is it wrong for a host of professional people who are allowed to write off up to 30% of their salary in expenses, without accounting for it. Unfortunately the media single out politicians.

The level of a politician’s salary is not good. If I was working at anything else doing the hours I am doing I would get far more. I am not complaining about that – I like the job – but politicians here are not well paid in comparison with their European counterparts. We don’t have the best people in politics simply because the level of salary isn’t high enough. I can see how someone who is unemployed – as happened during the teachers’ dispute – would say: ‘I have to live on £70pw. Look at what they get for x no of hours’. But it’s all relative. Look at Tony O’Reilly. He made £xm and 93,0-00 last year. As one person said I would have been happy with the £93,000. The answer to the country’s problems doesn’t lie in paying politicians less or unemployed people more. The answer is in strong leadership and having the right people in politicians to take the decisions. And having a system of incentives so that those who are dependent on the State are looked after, not in any pitiful or charitable sense but because they genuinely deserve it.

M O’H: The debate on the Divorce Referendum to date has been somewhat low-key. Has that surprised you?

MH: I don’t know that it has been that low-key. We’re nearly a month away from polling day. In some respects it has been a more rational debate than expected. But there were some disappointing features of the Dail debate, in particular Michael Woods’ reference to Frankenstein monsters stalking the land, an Alice Glenn and her turkeys looking forward to Christmas. That was unfortunate. And I did read in he paper today where some priest likened it to Chernobyl. I find it a worrying feature that a lot of people have no interest in it at all – particularly people who would vote for it. That’s the frightening thing about it. They are not pushed about it. It’s an extremely important issue and it’s important that it should be carried. Essentially it’s about voting for the kind of society we want.

M O’H: You have been very critical of the FB Bill to abolish illegitimacy on the grounds that it substitutes the word non-marital for illegitimate.

MH: I just feel so strongly that no one should suffer the stigma of being illegitimate, or non-marital whichever it is. They are the same thing: they are showing a distinction between people purely on the basis of their birth. The stigma is appalling I know people in that situation, and if they have to produce a birth certificate to get married or a passport they get really upset. My attitude is this: if people have had children outside their marriage then they have responsibilities towards those children. Those children should be entitled to some share in their parents’ estate just as the children of the marriage – obviously not the same share in that they have different parents from the children of the actual marriage – but they should certainly be entitled to some share of their father’s or mother’s property whichever the case may be. We get so paranoid in this country about farms, wealth and money. And the people who talk most about it are invariably those who insist there is no need for contraception, there is no marital breakdown and everybody behaves as they should do. They seem to be the only circumstances they worry about, rather than the unnatural description given to people like that. It’s wrong and very degrading.

M O’H: If it happened in the context of your own family farm do you think you could take it on board?

MH: I would hope I could. This is one of the things: it’s easy for me to say all this. I haven’t come up against the circumstances. It’s easy for anybody to condemn and moralise about others. I don’t think you should throw stones at others because nobody knows how you would react in similar circumstances. But one would hope one would carry through one’s own views.

M O’H: What do you like to do outside the Dail?

MH: I sound like an awful bore answering this. I used at one time to have a very active life going to the theatre, films and football matches. To be honest with you in the last two years I have rarely done anything except meet friends for a drink. I like cooking a lot. I entertain a fair bit, but again not as much as I would like to – when you live at home with your family you can’t always be bringing your friends in whenever you feel like it. I like to travel whenever possibly. If I am abroad I like to do useless things like pottering around art galleries. I am not a great person to lie around in the sun or anything like that.

M O’H: Is marriage something you contemplate seriously?

MH: Once I did. A couple of years ago I was in a situation where I thought I would like to marry a particular individual.

M O’H: Any regrets about that?

MH: No. One of the things about myself is that if I had any regrets I wouldn’t even admit them to myself. I am not against marriage. If there was someone I thought I could spend the rest of my life with I would be very keen on marrying somebody. But there isn’t anybody like that at the moment.

M O’H: Does the idea that you might not marry…

MH: Worry me? Not at all. The only thing that does annoy me is when everybody asks me, ‘Why aren’t you married? When are you going to get married? Are you going to get married?’. I mean my mother and her friends in particular would probably say ‘Wouldn’t it be great if Mary settled down. Why doesn’t she get out of politics and go back to teaching or something nine to five?’.

M O’H: Your life would certainly be less eventful.

MH: I couldn’t bear it. I just couldn’t cope with it. Politics is a bit like a drug. When you get used to it is is very hard to give it up. Very few people do. Even though most people moan about it, it’s a life very few will give up voluntarily. I may well lose my seat as everybody can and I often wonder how I would react to that.

M O’H: Does that element of risk bother you?

MH: There is no doubt for someone like me who has no other job or career it is a worry. I would often think like that to myself. I would say: ‘what would I do?’ I often say I would like to be a journalist. At least you would still be involved in politics. But I would make a terrible journalist. I’d never get the articles written in time for the deadlines. It does worry me. I have a huge overdraft. My bank manager is always screaming at me. My Visa people are constantly ringing me up asking ‘when are you going to send a cheque?’. I am very bad with money. I often worry when I have all my little loans to pay off what will I do if I lost my seat?

M O’H: If you get a strong letter from the bank does it put you out of sorts for the day?

MH: Unfortunately not. I shouldn’t say it if my bank manager is reading this. But I never worry about things like money. They don’t matter to me at all. All I want is money to do the things I want to do from day to day. It would worry me more if I was helping somebody and they rang me up and said ‘you are a disaster. If I went to X he would have done it’.

M O’H: You mean in your work through the constituency clinics?

MH: Yes. The situation where someone says if I had gone to Michael O’Leary or whoever he would have got it for me. Sometimes you have tried so hard on their behalf. Or perhaps somebody comes to you with a problem and you say there is absolutely nothing I can do about that. People don’t appreciate it. You are supposed to say ‘I will try’ and then write them a letter saying that you have tried. That’s appreciated much more then telling them straight off what you already know. People have great faith in the TDs letter – it’s a bit like the solicitor’s letter. The more letters they get from you the more they think you are working. And you can see at election time, it pays off.

M O’H: How did you feel about the deputy leadership of the party going to Michael Keating?

MH: When the party was formed Des O’Malley said to me that I would be deputy leader. And I said, ‘No’. I thought the party was too small for that. It would be top-heavy with bureaucracy. It would be daft. I remember saying to Dessie O’Malley shortly afterwards that if we were ever to have it, it should go to the first person who comes from FG as a signal that we have broken the mould.

M O’H: Was it part of a deal to bring Michael Keating into the Party?

MH: The first time it was mentioned to him was two weeks ago. I know because I was there. If you are an opportunist you don’t move for things like that. You move for something certain. To suggest it’s opportunism, coming to a party with four other sitting TDs which was an unknown quantity, when in FG he might have been offered anything, is just laughable.

M O’H: Why all the denials? He rang the Evening Herald after each edition appeared to deny their story.

MH: Two things happened. The weekend before he defected he intimated to his father and family that he might, that he was thinking of it. He hadn’t come back to them to say that he had made up his mind. I think, in particular, he didn’t want his father to hear it on the radio before he had a chance to go and see him. There was no advantage for him denying it, because he knew it was doing to be a reality three or four hours later or the next day or whatever. There was no justification for it. You can’t say he did the right thing. He just completely panicked. Myself and a few others had been with him that morning from eleven to half one when he went into Leinster House. We hadn’t seen the papers or heard the radio which was a disadvantage. Once he got to Leinster House he did all that over the next hour. I jokingly remarked, later, that I shouldn’t have let him out of my sight.

M O’H: It has been said that Charlie McCreevey and Liam Skelly have applied to join but they were turned down.

MH: Charlie McCreevey was and still is a very good friend of mine. He never asked to join the party. I’d have to say at one point I thought he might, but he didn’t. In advance of the party being formed he and I often discussed the idea of a new party. But on Northern Ireland in particular, Charlie’s view is very much the FF view. He would be very much with us on social legislation and on the economy but on the North we would find it very difficult. Liam Skelly has never made an approach in any formal sense.

M O’H: Are there more defections to come?

MH: I don’t know if there are. To be honest with you I am not in favour of having any more. I don’t want a party full of existing politicians. People in general over-estimate the importance of existing TDs. A lot of our voters are people who want a new approach, and want to see new faces. They are not fussed about having existing TDs in the Dail. There are some good TDs in the Dail that I would love to have but I don’t know if we will have them But they are very few.

M O’H: What TDs do you admire in the Dial?

MH: Well in FF I admired David Andrews. Eoin Ryan. Who else? In other parties, I admire Monica Barnes a lot. Maurice Manning. Now I suppose you are going to have all these down as people I want to join (laughs). They are not – you asked me who I admired!

M O’H: Is there anybody you dislike?

MH: There are people I don’t particularly like. There are a lot of them. Yes. I don’t like their approach. The only kind of animosity I ever suffered was being victimised within a party socially as well as politically. That’s unpleasant. I have come to accept that now. People meet you, you don’t say hello, they won’t say hello. It’s a pity but that’s the way it is. They are people I would have very little in common with anyway.

M O’H: What people spring to mind?

MH: I am not going to give you names of any of those people, I can tell you. I don’t think that would be fair. One person who I do have a lot of time for, which might surprise you, is Padraig Flynn. He is honest and believes in what he pursues. In terms of leadership battles within FF, he never left anyone in any doubt as to where he stood. There were others who stood up and said Charlie Haughey was the greatest, who had, perhaps 15 or 20 minutes earlier, told you the most dreadful things about him. Padraig Flynn in straight and honest in what he means and what he says though I don’t share his views.

M O’H: If there is a balance of power held in e next general election what do you think the opening line between Dessie O’Malley and Charlie Haughey might be?

MH: ‘We are not talking to each other.’ (laughs) A kind of Act 1 Scene 2 or something.

In regard to the Progressive Democrats I would prefer to see the party out of government in respect of any combination there might be. It would be better off from the party and the country’s point of view. You have far more influence outside the cabinet supporting a particular party, rather than being inside a cabinet where you lost al your freedom to operate. That would be my view. Hopefully there will be a sufficient number elected, and that will be the situation, and we will have that choice. Obviously there are particular people I wouldn’t like to see in government again.

M O’H: Any unfulfilled ambitions?

MH: Yes. I haven’t been Taoiseach yet (laughs). I was only joking…!