Charles Haughey beamed from the front page of the Irish Independent on Monday, photographed at Leopardstown Races on Sunday with his friend Dermot Desmond. Ten days ago he was the guest of honour at a farewell party in RTE, supposedly in honour of Gay Byrne. A few weeks ago he was at Old Trafford to watch Manchester United play in the European Cup. Last week he was at his favourite Dublin restaurant, Le Coq Hardi, for a private lunch.
Does all this public celebration betoken an insolent indifference to the adversities that are lined up to beset him in 1999 or is there in him a conviction of his own righteousness, undisturbed by the humiliations he had to endure these last two years?
He is to be tried, probably in the Circuit Criminal Court, on charges of obstructing the McCracken tribunal. Another tribunal of inquiry, the Moriarty tribunal, is trawling through his personal finances and his record in public office. Yet another tribunal, the Flood tribunal, is also likely to inquire into his finances and public record. The Circuit Court is soon to hear an appeal by the Revenue Commissioners against a decision to let him off estimated taxes of £2 million.
Still revered by a coterie of followers, for others he is the symbol of the degeneracy of our political culture. His latest escape from the demands of the tax authorities confirmed for many that status, but precisely what is it he has done that has been so wicked?
All we know (so far) is that he got a very large amount of money from wealthy friends and associates over many years and did not pay taxes possibly due on such payments. We also know he told lots of lies about some of these payments to the McCracken tribunal. And that is it.
We have no evidence (so far) that he did anything for these people in return - that is anything by way of State favours which in any way damaged the interests of the State.
The McCracken report said it was "unacceptable" for Mr Haughey to be supported in his personal lifestyle by gifts made to him personally.
But it went on to say: "There is no evidence of any favours sought of Mr Charles Haughey by Mr Ben Dunne (the largest benefactor identified so far), the Dunne family or the Dunnes Stores group, nor is there any evidence of any attempt by Mr Charles Haughey to exercise his influence for the benefit of Mr Ben Dunne, the Dunne family or the Dunnes Stores group. There appears in fact to have been no political impropriety on the part of Mr Charles Haughey in relation to these gifts, but that does not take away from the unacceptable nature of them."
Mr Justice McCracken nowhere explained why, if there was no political impropriety on the part of Mr Haughey in relation to these gifts, the taking of the gifts was "unacceptable". It could only be because of an appearance of a conflict of interest or the appearance of impropriety, not an actual conflict of interest nor an actual impropriety. Should he be demonised for appearances?
As for taxes, the contention has been that he failed to pay taxes due on these gifts, and did so at a time when he was in power and busily extracting taxes from the rest of us.
The public indignation, certainly as purportedly represented by the likes of John Bruton, over the non-payment of these taxes is curious. The public doesn't like taxes at all. Indeed our political culture views taxes almost as theft - the State taking away "our" money, indeed "our hard-earned money". I suspect the public particularly doesn't like taxes on gifts.
Politically, I myself am all in favour of gift taxes - without such taxes it would be impossible to do much about the unequal distribution of wealth. Furthermore, I hold a very much minority view on the taxation issue, believing that we do not have a "right" to the income we earn, that the monetary fruits of our labour is not "ours". However, my belief is that the public is (or would be if it knew about them) opposed to taxes on gifts.
Why then the hullabaloo over Mr Haughey not liking these taxes either and doing what most of us (all of us?) would do in similar circumstances - seeking to avoid them?
Yes, he should have (I think) declared these gifts in his tax returns but he was entitled to argue that no taxes properly arose on these gifts and since the Appeals Commissioner agreed with him, why isn't the general response: "good luck to him"?
Some of our resident Haughey-bashers have been slow about paying their taxes. One of these is Dr Conor Cruise O'Brien. He recently revealed that he had paid no income tax on the preponderance of his earnings for decades. He availed of the provision of the Finance Act 1969 (introduced, incidentally, by Mr Haughey) which exempted income from works of artistic or literary merit from income tax.
This, manifestly, was not intended to apply to journalistic work. Nevertheless, Dr O'Brien has felt free to regard the proceeds from his journalistic work exempt from income tax, along with the proceeds from the books he has written. And this has gone on, apparently, for 20 years.
Some people will respond by saying: "good luck to him if he can get away with it." But why shouldn't the same apply to Charles Haughey?
Now for the lies of Mr Haughey. Asked why he had not owned up at an early stage of the McCracken tribunal's hearings to getting large gifts from Ben Dunne, Mr Haughey said he was reluctant to face the consequences of disclosure. Isn't that precisely the reason most of us tell lies?
Anyway, apart from prolonging the work of the tribunal, what damage did the lies do? Lies are of different dimensions. For instance, those lies that cause great harm, without any compensating benefit, clearly are in a different category to lies that cause no harm. Gratuitous and relentless lies that destroy somebody's reputation obviously are worse than lies whose only effect is benign (a benign lie might be telling a person something that was personally flattering but untrue). Mr Haughey's lies to the McCracken tribunal were perhaps not benign but neither were they malign.
Mr Haughey has certainly been embarrassed by the disclosures of his lies and of his finances, but what, so far, has emerged that makes him degenerate? And if in 1999 it emerges that he received many more contributions to his personal finances but that "there appears in fact to have been no political impropriety on the part of Mr Charles Haughey in relation to these gifts" would he not be entitled to any sense of righteousness he feels and to the enjoyment of his retirement?