Deal or no deal? Beverley Flynn tells Miriam Donohoeshe would have supported the Taoiseach either way.
Beverley Flynn strides into the Olive Tree cafe in downtown Castlebar, Co Mayo, positively glowing. She has had a rollercoaster few weeks, but the admission of her two-year-old son, Harry, to hospital on Tuesday following an asthma attack has put all her other issues into perspective. "Howya," she says, proffering a hardy handshake. "Can you excuse me a minute. I want to ring home to check Harry is okay."
Despite the worry about her son, there is no doubt the spring is back in her step. Not that it had ever really disappeared. "The Flynns are a proud people and the family philosophy is 'never forget who you are'.
She may have been down at times in the last 10 years, but she was never, ever out," one local man close to the "Flynnasty" says.
Reassured that Harry is fine, Flynn slings her cream and beige Louis Vuit-ton bag on to the table and takes a seat. The 41-year-old daughter of one Pádraig "Pee" Flynn, the woman he famously described as a "class act" exudes confidence. She is oblivious to the fact that as the interview is taking place, her Mayo constituency colleague and Fine Gael leader, Enda Kenny, is on national radio berating Bertie Ahern for making supportive remarks about her in advance of her court costs case.
If a week is a long time in politics, a fortnight must be an eternity. Two weeks ago, Flynn was a returned Independent backbench TD with no political future. She was facing expulsion from the Dáil due to a High Court bankruptcy action over the non-payment of a €2.8 million costs bill arising from her failed libel action against RTÉ. She has settled that debt for a sum in the region of €1.2 million, in effect a €1.6 million discount. She is on her way back into the Fianna Fáil party, and has been anointed for promotion by the Taoiseach himself.
"For the first time in nearly 10 years, I am going on holidays with a lot of issues on my plate resolved for me personally. I am not going to say the line is drawn in the sand . . . in political life, things come up time and time again and it's not a matter for me to say that's the end of that . . . but for me personally I have resolved a lot of issues and I am very happy in myself."
And what of her deal with Ahern in turn for supporting the Government, and the Taoiseach's insinuation in the Dáil on Tuesday that there was no agreement? Flynn admits she was taken aback when she was told what Ahern had said but didn't hear it herself as she was with her son in hospital.
There is, she says, a verbal deal - "agreement or deal, whatever you want to call it". She claims that she was offered a written deal in an initial conversation with the Taoiseach's programme manager, Gerry Hickey, but turned it down. "I wasn't interested in a written deal and going on to a plinth waving a piece of paper with the Taoiseach's signature. His word was enough . . . we have a mutual understanding now of what is important for the county."
The first contact seeking her support for the Government came from Hickey a day or two after the election. She then met the Taoiseach, and had three or four subsequent phone calls with him, the last one at noon on June 14th, the day the new Dáil convened. At no stage did she and Ahern discuss her case with RTÉ. In the initial phone call with Hickey, she offered him the information that "I had my own difficulties to resolve and I am going about that". After that, "categorically", it was never raised again, she says.
On the deal itself, all she will say is that it involves a number of issues. "Road, rail, airports, health, and Mayo General Hospital are issues very important to me. I broadly discussed with the Taoiseach this is what is required in the county and he knows what my expectations are. There are no issues between the Taoiseach and [ me] on policy . . . maybe on priority and timing."
She says she would have supported Ahern for Taoiseach, with or without a deal. "He didn't know that. When the election was over, it was very obvious to me he was really the only option for stability for the next five years." She refuses to say what assurances the Taoiseach gave her in relation to a junior ministry. "I am happy with what he has said on the matter publicly. I have to take every step as it comes. The initial step is whether I get back into Fianna Fáil, and when, and we will see what happens after that." And if she doesn't get delivery? "That is something I can evaluate at the time. But I am very confident and happy I have access to the Taoiseach in relation to any issues in my constituency."
Next week, the High Court will be told precise details of the settlement Flynn reached with RTÉ. She says the money (and she doesn't dispute the figure quoted) has to be paid "by mid to end of August". The specific date will be mentioned in court.
She will be funding the debt "personally out of my own resources". That involves selling a house she owns in Castlebar (ironically, it was purchased as an investment when she was in her late 20s and earning good money with National Irish Bank) for which she expects to get between €350,000 and €400,000. There is a €50,000 mortgage to be cleared on the building. She is currently negotiating with a bank for a loan for the rest. "I am looking at paying this over the next 20 years and it will cost in the region of 100 per cent of my salary."
This, says Flynn, will leave her in a position where, for the first time in her working life, she will be dependent on someone else - in this case her partner, wealthy local contractor Tony Gaughan, the father of her two children, Harry and five-year-old Caoilin. The couple live in a big stone house just off the so-called "Pee Flynn Highway" leading into Castlebar, in a townland called Windsor. The house, which can barely be seen from the main road, has turrets and electronic gates. It is known to some as "Windsor Castle", making Flynn "the Duchess of Windsor".
Being financially dependent doesn't sit comfortably with her, and having to depend on Gaughan financially will be "the biggest hardship for me", she says. "The reality is, it is going to leave me in a situation raising my children and for my own living expenses I am going to be dependent to a large extent." She agrees she won't be getting much sympathy on this score and that she won't be on the side of the road. "I accept that, and of course it's not a bad situation to be in, but for me personally I find the principle of it hard, given that I have always been independent. But that is the way it is going to be, and I am going to have to deal with it."
Flynn insists that there was no question of interference by Ahern in relation to the settlement with RTÉ. Once she had lodged the constitutional challenge, negotiations started to move along very quickly and she says she has done "everything, absolutely everything" to pay the debt.
"I don't want the taxpayer to suffer in any way but Cathal Goan [ RTÉ director general] indicated that the taxpayer or licence holder wasn't going to suffer . . . I would love to have had €2.8 million in the bank and to have been able to sign it over . . . I am not a wealthy person, and never have been, and everything I had had been used up and gone. I can't give any more than that or do any more than what's in my capacity to do."
Flynn believes she has had a rough ride in the media, and says that she picks her press engagements carefully. She eventually agreed, for her own reasons, to talk to The Irish Times, despite approaches from other newspapers. But plans for a photograph to be taken in her office yesterday fell through.
It was hard to find anybody in Castlebar this week who doesn't accept that Flynn is bright and articulate, and would make a strong minister. Her unshakeable self-belief has helped her weather the storms of recent years, but it is hard to distinguish the instinct for political survival from sheer, brass-necked arrogance.
Her father's legacy is impossible to avoid in the town. There is the excellent road network around Castlebar, the modern Garda station and library, all secured when the former EU commissioner was a government minister. Local people insist that anything in the town, and Co Mayo, came when he was in the cabinet. The county is sorely missing out on the fact it has had no cabinet representation for 15 years.
She is said to be cut from the cloth of her father and has the same mannerisms. But, while the two are very close, she is keeping a public distance from him these days. He was the mastermind of her general election victory, seen every day in her campaign headquarters in Market Square, but it was noted he wasn't with her on June 14th, the day the Dáil resumed. She is keen to point out she is not his clone and that they differ on a lot of issues.
As she heads out of the political wilderness and back into the centre stage of both local and national politics, the task now is to reunite the Fianna Fáil organisation, which was thrown into disarray by the saga. The main Fianna Fáil cumann in Castlebar, which was named after Mícheál Ó Moráin, the town's first government minister and controlled by the Flynns, was dissolved by party headquarters after her expulsion when she lost her Supreme Court libel appeal.
Former Mícheál Ó Moráin members who opted to stay loyal to Fianna Fáil and not to support Flynn formed the John Jordan cumann, named after a committed party activist. There were threats during the recent election campaign that members who canvassed for her would be expelled. But now that she has resolved her issues with RTÉ there is a will to mend fences. Last week, 10 of the 12 Fianna Fáil Mayo county councillors said publicly they would welcome the lifting of Flynn's expulsion in line with the conditions laid down by Ahern.
Eamon Joyce, secretary of the John Jordan Cumann and of the Mayo Dáil Ceanntair, says there is an acceptance now, since Flynn announced her settlement, that she is coming back. "Beverley is a very capable lady, far superior to her father, with great ability. She has to be given the standing she deserves in the organisation. She is only 41 and is looking at another good 25 years in politics. She has loads she can achieve."
Fianna Fáil councillor and John Jordan Cumann member, Aidan Crowley, says the reality is that she has never had the opportunity to fulfil her potential. "Most of her energies have been sapped from taking the RTÉ action to the High Court and then the Supreme Court. She wasn't concentrating on her constituents at all. She can now work on her career. She is better than most of the other ministers, including Mary Coughlan and Mary Hanafin."
However, when she is back, Flynn can't be allowed to set the agenda, he says. "We can't go back to the old days of the Mícheal Ó Moráin cumann where people were terrified to express a view. In those days with Pádraig Flynn it was a case of 'if you are not with us [ the Flynns], you are against us'. People were petrified to speak out. Fianna Fáil is bigger than Pee Flynn or Beverley Flynn."
Not everyone will welcome Flynn back with open arms. Former Fianna Fáil senator and councillor Frank Chambers, a failed election candidate, says it is not in the best interests of the party to bring her back. "It doesn't do anything for Fianna Fáil and will be of no benefit to the county. I know I am in a minority on this one. The intervention of the Taoiseach was totally unwarranted but if that is what the people of Mayo want representing them, good and well."
Flynn loyalist and chairman of the Micheal Ó Morain cumann at the time it was disbanded, John Browne, was MC at a function celebrating her return to the Dáil last Saturday night. He says everyone needs to sit down together to sort out differences. "The Fianna Fáil party is not in a healthy position and we need to have a root and branch shake-up without interference. If the organisation gets its act together, we can win a third seat for Mayo in the next election."
There were five former presidents of the Mícheál Ó Moráin cumann at Flynn's party in her unofficial headquarters, the Welcome Inn, which 500 people attended. It was only at the end of her speech that she mentioned she had reached a settlement with RTÉ. The room erupted. "It was like Fianna Fáil functions of old. In recent years people did not look happy at these gatherings. There was bitterness and division. Last Saturday, people were ebullient. The mood is there now to heal the wounds," says Browne.
Flynn herself is adamant that she will not be going back into Fianna Fáil "on anyone's terms", but stresses if it is going to work it must be done in a harmonious way. "It's about bringing all people into the organisation and bringing everyone together, and it is most definitely not about going back on anyone's terms or anybody having the up on anybody else, it is not going to be like that.
She has spoken with Fianna Fáil Mayo TD Dara Calleary and "he is keen to work in harmony with me and I with him, and we are going to meet over the summer and hopefully work things out. The Taoiseach has said Fianna Fáil is my natural home and we have to wait and see over the summer how that actually materialises . . . from my point of view, I am not in any huge rush. I am not panicking. I feel I have time on my side and I would prefer to do things right rather than rush into it."
Calleary says he is happy to work with Flynn to reunite the party and is eager that consultations get under way as soon as possible. "There is a lot of work that needs to be done to rebuild the party and Beverley and myself and John Carty, if he gets elected to the Senate, need to work together".
OF HER OWN political ambitions, Flynn is not looking beyond where she is at the minute and refuses to say if she sees herself as a future Cabinet minister, or even a Fianna Fáil leader and Taoiseach. "I have just come through three years as an Independent TD and have fought a general election in what I believe is the most competitive constituency in the country, and retained my seat for the third time. Then I had negotiations for two and a half weeks with the Taoiseach for a formation of government and then settled my case with RTÉ. I need a chance to catch my breath."
And what about her father and his matters with the Mahon tribunal, and suggestions that Bertie's courtship of her is related to his tribunal appearance? She throws back her head and laughs. "There is no credence in that whatsoever, And the tribunal is a matter for my father . . . he can look after that one all by himself. I will give him the odd supportive phone call, that's all."