Garret on Haughey in 1979

(An edited version of the speech delivered n the Dail by Garret FitzGerald, then leader of the Opposition, on 9 December 1979, on the nomination of Charles Haughey as Taoiseach).

I I am conscious of speaking for a large part of the Irish people, regardless of party, and I am very conscious of the difficulty of responding adequately and sensitively to this unique situation. I must speak not only for the Opposition but for many in Fianna Fáil who may not be free to say what they believe or to express their deep fears for the future of this country under the proposed leadership, people who are not free to reveal what they know and what led them to oppose this man with a commitment far beyond the normal.
I hope that some at least may feel able to express their feelings, their very real patriotism and their deep concern for Ireland, but few or none may be able to do so. If that is the case, this task falls to others and, in the first instance, to me. I trust I may be equal to it, that I may say what needs to be said and can be said, recognising how much I cannot say, for reasons that all in this House understand.
I take no pleasure in what I have to say. I have known Deputy Haughey for more than 35 years. I have never suffered insult or injury from him nor exchanged with him bitter words at any time. I would find my task today easier if we had not had this long relationship with each other, a relationship that was never intimate but never hostile. But I must do my duty regardless of these personal considerations. At the outset I must recognise his talents—his political skills and the competence he has shown in the past in the administration of Departments. These are important qualities in a Taoiseach, but they are not enough.
His motives can be judged ultimately only by God but we cannot ignore the fact that he differs from his predecessors (as Taoiseach) in that these motives have been and are widely impugned, most notably but by no means exclusively, by people within his own party, people close to him who have observed his actions for many years and who have made their human, interim judgment on him. They and others, both in and out of public life, have attributed to him an overweening ambition which they do not see as a simple emanation of a desire to serve but rather as a wish to dominate, even to own the State.
This judgment will be contested by others. It cannot be more than an imperfect assessment of the man but it is incontestable that this view of him is widely and most passionately held by people in his own party. If elected, he will be the first in a line of hitherto patriotic men who will have been viewed in this way by many contemporaries and many of his colleagues.
The second aspect of the election of this man as Taoiseach which must disturb deeply every democrat is that, whatever may be the result of the vote—and I think that is a foregone conclusion—he knows, I know and they all know that he does not command the genuine confidence of even one-third of this House, never mind one half. No previous Taoiseach has been elected in similar circumstances.
The feet that will go through that lobby to support his election will include many that will drag; the hearts of many who will climb those stairs before turning aside to vote will be heavy. Many of those who may vote for him will be doing so in the belief and the hope that they will not have long to serve under a man they do not respect, whom they have fought long and hard, but for the moment in vain, to exclude from the highest office in the land. These men and women who, while they may give their formal consent, withhold their full consent in the interior forum include a clear majority of those who have served with him in government, who know his abilities better than most but are repelled by other defects which they see as superseding all considerations of mere competence, political skill or adroitness.
If those on both sides of this House who see the dangers for this State that lie almost inexorably and fatally embedded in the nomination now before us cannot find it possible at this moment to come together in face of this danger and make common cause for Ireland, can we truthfully say to our electorate, some of them born almost 40 years after that event, that there is any reason for this other than the origins of the parties to [1331] which we belong—origins that many of us had hoped were now totally irrelevant to the contemporary political life of this State?