As someone who once touched Charlie Haughey for a loan, I suppose I have as much entitlement as anyone to recall an encounter with the former Taoiseach. It happened in Paris, a city for which he seems to have developed an affection in subsequent years. Mr Haughey, as Minister for Finance, was in the French capital with the Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, on yet another mission to try to persuade the unyielding President of the Fifth Republic, Charles de Gaulle, to drop his opposition to the admission of Ireland (and by virtue of common currency and trade links, Britain) to the European Economic Community, or the Common Market as it was generally known. De Gaulle had vetoed the applications of Britain and Ireland in 1963 because of a not unreasonable suspicion that if the sterling twins were admitted the British would rampage like soccer hooligans in the tenderly developing garden of European unity.
Delicate exchanges
Now, four years on, in Paris the Taoiseach and his Finance Minister were finding that the General had mellowed not at all. In their discussions - no-one negotiated with de Gaulle - it was hinted that France might consent to a form of conditional membership for Ireland, a sort of apprenticeship, until the Brits were considered to have become civilised enough to be admitted. This was unacceptable to the Irish supplicants; the trade ties with Britain were too strong.
While these delicate and fruitless exchanges were taking place behind closed doors, I was rapidly running out of money in the streets of Paris. I was covering the talks for this newspaper and the accounts department had left me a sou or two short in my expenses allocation. In those days impoverished reporters did not rise to credit cards. And I had forgotten the advice of a more experienced colleague from a rival stable across the Liffey. "First thing you do when the send you out foreign is to wire back for more money as soon as you find an hotel," he had counselled. "That makes them think the story must be important and they'll use it on the front page - and they won't query your expenses when you get back."
Back at our embassy in the Avenue Foch I approached Mr Haughey after the briefing and the interviews. "Any chance, Minister, you could lend me 50 dollars until we get back to Dublin?" I asked. "I'm getting a bit low." No problem, says he, and peels off the 50 greenbacks from his wallet. Those were the days of startling currency fluctuations and the dollar was about the hardest note around. "Many thanks," I said and departed to find a beer and a telephone. He called me back. "By the way, when we get home I want that back in dollars," he demanded. "American dollars, none of your ould sterling or anything like that." Well, he was the Minister for Finance and a good one at that so he must have known a thing or two about currency movements. Yet years on he solemnly testifies to a tribunal of inquiry that he never bothered about the daily bagatelle of money and left his financial affairs in the hands of his accountant.
Vatican visit
Paris was one of several capital to which I travelled with Messrs Lynch and Haughey on their Common Market mission. In Rome there was time off from political business to visit the Pope in the Vatican. On the return to our embassy to the Holy See, on a heavy, hot day, the Taoiseach was pulling off the white bow tie and stiffened collar of the formal morning suit and announcing simultaneously with Cork City pride: "Do you know who the Pope had as his interpreter? A young priest from Glanmire." "Get the ambassador to give His Holiness a ring, Jack," said Charlie, "and they'll make him a Cardinal in no time."
Charlie's saddle
It was rumoured that on one of these European trips Charlie had contrived to bring back an expensive saddle under cover of the diplomatic bag. Maybe it was the one he fell off a year or two later, hours before he was due to deliver the Budget speech in the Dail. Jack Lynch had a different style. I went to the duty-free shop in Brussels Airport after the official visit to Belgium. Directly in front of me at the check-out, producing his ticket to Dublin for verification, was the Taoiseach of Ireland. He had in hand a jumbo-sized bottle of Dimple Haig. Strange, I thought at the time, for a man who enjoyed a tipple of Paddy.
"You will not be allowed to bring so much whisky into Ireland," said the check-out girl firmly. "You must buy only a normal size bottle."
"It's all right," said the Taoiseach. "I know a man in Dublin."