In 1979, when Charlie Haughey was voted leader of Fianna Fail and Taoiseach he gave a press conference. At it, he was asked where his money came from. He said the question presumed he was rich, which mightn't be the case: 'Ask my bank manager', he replied. We now know that that was a better joke than it seemed. At the time, he was in debt to AIB to the tune of IR Punt1.143 million. Haughey dominated Irish political life from the sixties to the nineties. He had always lived beyond his visible means. From 1969 on he lived like a prince in Kinsealy, at times on nothing more than a backbench TD's salary. Colm Keena traces the origins of Haughey's lifestyle back to the 1950s and to his early life as a partner in Haughey Boland & Co. He follows his early involvement with Des Traynor and his developing relationships with property developers. Through all the ups and downs of Haughey's amazing career, the financial background was always a mess. He was constantly in debt. The bank leaned on him. He leaned on his friends. Less than a fortnight after becoming Taoiseach, the property developer Patrick Gallagher agreed to contribute IR Punt300,000 towards a settlement of Haughey's bank debts. While he was Taoiseach, the money rolled in. Haughey was in effect a kept man. Colm Keena traces the whole tangled story from beginning to end. It is a story that almost defies belief.

Haughey's Millions

Colm Keena

Biographies & Memoirs

Gill & MacMillan, Ltd. (Irelan

The key to some of Ireland's darkest political and business secrets was kept in the archives of Guinness & Mahon bank in Dublin. Under the stewardship of Des Traynor, money lodged in the bank by some of Ireland's leading business people was quietly moved offshore to the Cayman Islands. The funds could then be repatriated and made available to the original depositor without any tax liability. This is the story of a network of the powerful and the well connected. The 1960s boom created a lot of new money and a lot of influence to go with it. There were builders, property speculators, hoteliers, suddenly sitting on loads of money. They needed connections, they craved access to power and they wished to keep very distant from the Revenue Commissioners. They had earned their money hard, dammit, and they weren't throwing it away on tax. At the centre of the web stood the biggest boss of all, Charles Haughey. It was he who had first apprenticed Des Traynor as an accountant. Now he ran all his personal finances through him. The network needed financial protection, so Traynor provided it and Haughey got the kickbacks to keep him in style in Kinsealy. The Ansbacher Conspiracy tells how the scam worked, who was involved and how it unravelled.

The Ansbacher Conspiracy

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

GILL MACMILLAN

The fascinating story of the man who blew the boom. Colm Keena, the journalist who first broke the story of Bertie Ahern's finances, gives us an in-depth examination of the former Taoiseach's character, his lust for power and his obsession with money. Keena scrutinizes the evidence produced by the Mahon Tribunal about Ahern's personal finances and his personal political machine, and illustrates the lengths to which Ahern went in his effort to hide the truth about what he was up to. Ahern's political career is re-charted in the light of what we now know about his character. Keena looks at how his desire for power existed alongside an almost complete absence of political conviction, this lack of which left him open to the influence of those with strong opinions, and did nothing to arrest his mismanagement of the Irish economy. His lust for popularity brought Ireland from rude good health to economic disaster. An historic opportunity was squandered, but Bertie walked away from the wreckage with his wallet bulging. His legacy: the near-destruction of a European economy and the collapse of one of the most successful political parties of the past hundred years.

Bertie: Power and Money

Leaders & Notable People

Gill & MacMillan, Limited

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Books by Colm Keena