Two figures. £16,000. £500,000. One is a bill for shirts. The other is for legal fees. Both were charged to Charles J. Haughey. But you know that. You know because these are details of our former Taoiseach's dirty laundry. And, if you'll pardon the pun, they have received blanket coverage over the last few days. The front pages have been dominated by these issues, as have the radio phone-ins. The shirt story has resulted in some of the oddest coverage. Charvet has been plagued with phone calls and it's had journalists turning up at the door. Ben Briscoe has had his election expenses examined and his clothing bill, a more modest £2,635.95, appear on one front page.
A cottage industry has sprung up in shirt-related jokes, cartoons and witty observations. My favourite, by the way, was a comment that, bearing in mind how much money Ben Dunne had handed over to Charles J., he might have had the decency to buy his shirts at Dunnes Stores. A certain amount of coverage of these items is inevitable and, indeed, important. That taxpayers' money was being poured into the ex-Taoiseach's wardrobe was a terrible abuse of his position. And it is significant that he will be forced to pay his legal fees for his objections to the Moriarty tribunal. But the amount of interest goes way beyond what these events require. In one way it is a bizarre testament to the status of the man at the centre of it all. Throughout his reign he was a figure exuding power, a man with the ability to charm or to strike fear into almost anyone. A man elevated to almost mythical stature. He seemed mysterious, enjoyed the trappings of power and was rarely too far from some political scandal or other.
His supporters saw him as someone who could do no wrong. His enemies believed he could do no right and were constantly perplexed by his ability to survive their constant attacks. He seemed to have a Rasputin-like ability to persevere. Yet, finally, he has fallen. It's not simply that his empire has been taken away from him. His business and personal dealings have been made public, or rather, put under the microscope.
We know or are learning where his money came from and went to. We know about his lands, his homes, his horses, his personal life. And this process of exposure has helped to cut away the old larger-than-life image and replaced it with something far less grand. I clearly have no chance of doing a little freelance image consulting because in the time I spent working as minister of state at his Department when he was Taoiseach, I not only failed to notice the extra six handstitches per inch characteristic of any decent Charvet, but considered him not to be the nattiest of dressers.
Particularly when it came to socks. I now realise they must have been made of silk and may have cost as much per sock as one of the shirts, but at the time I just thought they looked like women's tights in the way the colour of his skin showed through.
But the fact that he felt the need to wear shirts from a particular designer speaks not of a man comfortable with power or confident of his decisions. Even though it was difficult for anyone meeting the man to tell whether he'd spent £50 or £150 on a shirt, he still needed to know he was dressed in the more exclusive option. His pattern of compensatory spending did not stop with his clothes - the large houses, an island, a yacht or two, some racehorses. All very clearly status symbols. That these status symbols were way beyond his means was irrelevant. His need to have them outweighed his caution. He bought and he borrowed so he could buy again.
If Charles Haughey's life were to be viewed as a Greek tragedy then his fatal flaw was not his greed but his overwhelming desire for class. It was what motivated him, what made him the figure he was and ultimately turned him into the figure of fun he is today. He will be remembered not for what he achieved but what he bought. He was living above several people's means, in what seems to me a desperate attempt to convince himself of his worth. Sort of self-definition by accompanying props - "I must be Old Money, look at what I own." Except that as that handy little guide, The Millionaire Next Door, points out, the brand-name ostentation of his spending is precisely what will never win you acceptance by Old Money.
As may have been demonstrated by the contemptuous response of Dr Edmund Farrell when asked for money. In essence, Farrell said begging had its place, but in the theatre at an interval? Please . . . Arguably more grave in their implications than his shirt purchases, however, are the sums paid to one of his own party deputies. Two cheques for £12,400 and £13,600, made out in 1989 and 1990. At that time, the government was operating on a slim majority. The deputy was in danger of being declared bankrupt. Any TDs declared bankrupt automatically lose their seat. It was sinister enough that Mr Haughey should apparently know of his deputy's impending bankruptcy before the man himself did. Even more sinister is the action he took based on the information.
There may be a way around the interpretation that a man's solvency was bought in order to circumvent a long-standing parliamentary regulation, but I have failed to come up with such an alternative interpretation.
In its absence, I am saddened to think of the simplicity of the sum: £26,000 for two more years in power. Cheap at the price.