Seán Doherty will be remembered as a skilled political operator, but one who found himself out of his depth, writes Peter Murtagh.
Sometime in the autumn of 1982, I met Seán Doherty in his office in the Department of Justice in Dublin. For much of that year since he was appointed the previous March, I had been reporting on what, by any detached assessment, was an eventful period in office.
In the case of Doherty and the department, the common thread that ran through many of the stories that found their way into the newspapers was a tension between the forces of political power and the gardaí. Not all gardaí, to be sure, but sufficient number, and of sufficiently senior rank, to make my life as the paper's security correspondent more than a little interesting.
As I recall it, when I met Doherty on this occasion I had not yet written in detail on three incidents that came to dominate his amazing 10 months as minister - the enforced transfer of a Roscommon Garda sergeant Tom Tully, the Dowra affair, and the illegal tapping of the telephones of two journalists, Bruce Arnold of the Irish Independent and Geraldine Kennedy, now Editor of The Irish Times.
But I had written sufficient for it to be apparent to the minister that I was not a member of his fan club. As the interview progressed, it was apparent that he was not a member of mine.
He was behind his desk; I sat in front of it. I don't recall much of what either of us said but I do know that it was Doherty's style to laugh off difficult questions with quips like "now why would a fellow like you be asking me a question like that?" And he would lean back in his chair, relaxed, affable but knowing that he had the whip hand: the reporter was the supplicant; he, the minister, didn't have to say a thing if he didn't want to.
At some stage, he said the only thing of note which, for obvious reasons, wasn't worth reporting in The Irish Times. "I know all about your family," said the minister for justice, adding for emphasis, "all about you."
I had no idea what he meant. I was 29, single and leading a fairly normal life as a reporter. My parents had no public profile and my brother was a secondary school teacher far from the minister's constituency. None of us has a criminal record but Doherty, a former member of the Special Branch, would have had sources enough to find out whatever he wanted about us.
The only thing I could think of was that my sister, who is an artist, had been teaching art to prisoners in Mountjoy jail and maybe someone in the gardaí ran a check on her when she applied for the job (and quite right too) and thus, in the way of bureaucracies, somewhere there was a file with our family name on it.
Maybe it wasn't this. Maybe it was nothing - just another mischievous quip from the Doc. But what did it mean? I had no idea then (I don't remember responding and asking him what he meant) but I do remember thinking it was a menacing comment and the menace of it fitted with the prevailing mood of the time.
Seán Doherty was a husband and a father. He had good friends and lots of acquaintances. They will be upset at his death yesterday and particularly so at the early age of 60 - young by today's standards.
Most people are rounded individuals. They have good and bad sides, and certainly Seán Doherty was not all bad by any means. He was good company, as many former colleagues noted in radio interviews yesterday.
Politically, he redeemed himself somewhat by his able chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee in its latterday inquiry into overspending by Iarnród Éireann. Had he worked for an honest, honourable taoiseach earlier in his career instead of for Charles Haughey, things might have turned out differently.
But they didn't; they turned out as they did and the passage of time does not detract from the seriousness of what happened in 1982.
What was the Tully business? Not much, one might think - the transfer of a rural sergeant from Boyle in Roscommon to Ballyconnell in Cavan. Not exactly the other end of the country; no loss of pay etc etc. Tom Tully was informed that his move was "in the best interests of the force".
The truth was that Tully was being moved at the explicit behest of his political boss because the sergeant had sought to enforce the law in a way that upset one of the minister's constituents. At issue was persistent illegal drinking in a local pub.
How could it be in the best interests of the Garda Síochána that a middle-rank officer diligently applying the law should be transferred against his will? And it would certainly not be in the wider public interest if it became known throughout the Garda that this was the fate awaiting anyone who crossed the minister.
Dowra. On radio yesterday, one commentator dismissed Dowra by saying "things like Dowra happened in those days quite a lot".
I doubt that very much. Here's what Dowra was: Dowra was a conspiracy between two neighbouring police forces to arrest a man in the jurisdiction of one so that justice could be perverted within the jurisdiction of the other.
You don't need to know anything else about Dowra - that summation should be enough to make anyone's hair stand on end. The arrest was in Northern Ireland and involved the main prosecution witness in a case taking place that day in the Republic.
The case was against a relative of the minister and the arrest happened as a result of an explicit request from the minister. When the chief witness failed to turn up in court, the case against Doherty's relative was dismissed.
Telephone tapping is a serious business and a necessary tool in the armoury of the gardaí. By law, it may only be used with the sanction of the Minister for Justice and only for the investigation of major crime and subversion.
Nothing that either Bruce Arnold or Geraldine Kennedy were doing in 1982 fell into that category. Both were writing - the former mainly by reporting, the latter mainly by commenting - about internal Fianna Fáil opposition to Charlie Haughey's leadership.
Uncomfortable for him for sure, but not criminal and not subversive. And as the courts ruled eventually, by so doing, the State had infringed the constitutional rights of both journalists. Both had their names cleared and were compensated.
When I disclosed the illegal tapping and Michael Noonan, Doherty's successor, confirmed it (and disclosed more besides - one minister using Garda surveillance equipment to bug secretly his conversation with another), there were political convulsions and Garda resignations.
Ten years later in 1992, Seán Doherty explained his action by saying he had a "constitutional obligation" to discover who was leaking from the Cabinet. Many would argue that the only constitutional obligation upon the minister for justice is to uphold the law and constitution, not trample over both.
In a follow-up press conference to those 1992 comments on RTÉ's Nighthawks programme, Seán Doherty sat with his wife beside him. She was there out of a fear that her husband might not be able to go through with it, might not be able fully to read the statement saying that, contrary to everything he said before, Charles Haughey indeed knew of the tapping and had even been given transcripts.
But go through with it he did. And in confirming what many, perhaps most, people always thought, Seán Doherty lit the fuse that finally blew Charles Haughey from public office. A shame he knew nothing about Haughey's other secrets . . .
Asked to reflect some years later, Doherty mused on "the cut and thrust" of politics and seemed phlegmatic: "If you can't stand the heat, leave the kitchen," he said.
He indicated he had no regrets. He became seriously religious, an aspect of his life that may bring some comfort to his family as they mourn their loss.
There will be two perspectives today on Seán Doherty: the personal, which will be a family's loss like that of any other. And the political. Judgment there will be harsh. He was a skilled political operator for sure, but the former Branchman was out of his depth when one day he found himself in charge of the entire force and with a venal boss to satisfy.