IN the autumn of 1987, Charles Haughey was a man with a mission. The State was on a "slide to disaster", he told the Dail, and only a dramatic reduction in public expenditure could reverse it.
Mr Haughey's minority government, which had come to power earlier that year, had just published details of the most severe cutbacks in spending for 30 years, amounting to Pounds 485 million and involving the projected loss of 8,000 public service jobs.
In the debate on the estimates that year, the then Taoiseach said public debt was the major cause of high interest rates and the single biggest constraint on further growth and development.
It now appears that public debt was not the only financial matter weighing on Mr Haughey's mind. In the month following the Dail debate, the Dunnes payments tribunal has been told, Mr Haughey's close friend, Mr Des Traynor, put in a call to Mr Noel Fox, a friend and financial adviser to Mr Ben Dunne.
The call sparked a bizarre chain of events which saw Mr Dunne contribute more than Pounds 1 million to funds managed for Mr Haughey by Mr Traynor over the following three years.
On December 1st the first of five payments - according to Mr Dunne's evidence - was on its way to Mr Haughey. On the day the cheque, for Pounds 182,000 sterling, was drawn on Dunnes Stores' account in the Ulster Bank in Bangor, newspapers reported that Mr Haughey was seeking money.
Securing maximum increases in social and regional funds was to be a priority for the Taoiseach at the EC summit in Copenhagen that week, it was announced. Mr Haughey returned from the meeting, saying: "Good progress was made and many problems had been dealt with."
The following month Mr Haughey was again preaching financial rectitude as the only panacea for debts which had got out of hand.
"We just can't keep stimulating the economy with government spending we can't afford," he said.
Politically, 1988 was to be a good year for Mr Haughey. The government's harsh fiscal policies were welcomed by the public, and an Irish Times/MRBI opinion poll in May showed a spectacular rise in Fianna Fail's popularity.
Mr Haughey, with a 55 per cent satisfaction rating, was by far the most popular party leader.
In an address to the United Nations in June 1988, he emphasised the importance of Ireland's neutrality, saying our only strength as a nation was "the moral right to speak out truthfully, uninhibited by any vested interest or involvement.
One issue on which Mr Haughey steadfastly refused to speak out was a controversy which broke shortly afterwards over items of jewellery presented to his wife, Maureen, by Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia.
Despite calls for the gift to be handed over to the State, the Taoiseach persistently refused to answer press queries about the matter, and finally a government spokeswoman announced that Mrs Haughey would be keeping the jewellery.
Speculation at the time was that the gift was worth Pounds 160,000, but even that sum paled beside the figure on another cheque which was on its way from Mr Dunne to an account being managed for Mr Haughey in August 1988. This cheque, for Pounds 471,000 sterling, followed further contact between Mr Traynor and Mr Fox.
By early 1989, storm clouds were beginning to gather over Mr Haughey's government, with allegations of malpractice in the beef industry.
A series of Dail defeats for the government led, on May 26th, to Mr Haughey launching his fifth and final attempt to gain an over-all majority for his party. But May 1988 was also the month of Mr Traynor's third call to Mr Fox, according to the evidence heard by the tribunal so far.
Another cheque, this time for Pounds 150,000 sterling, was on its way from Mr Dunne.
Markedly less successful, however, was Mr Haughey's attempt to give his party the position of strength it sought in Dail Eireann. Despite Fianna Fail's continued high standing in the polls, it returned with 77 seats, three fewer than before the election
The result led to an unlikely partnership between Mr Haughey and his long-time bitter rival, Mr Des O'Malley, with Fianna Fail and the PDs forming a coalition which had been unthinkable before the campaign.
The match, though hardly made in heaven, proved surprisingly durable, as did Ben Dunne's generosity. In March 1990, following yet another phone call from Mr Traynor to Mr Fox, he authorised another contribution for Mr Haughey, this time of Pounds 200,000 sterling.
Mr Haughey's own finances may have been in better shape, but in 1991 a series of financial controversies dogged his government. One involved payments to executives of Greencore, the former State sugar company; another the price paid by Telecom Eireann for a site in Ballsbridge.
Discontent within his own party was growing and in November two of his senior Ministers, Mr Albert Reynolds and Mr Padraig Flynn, backed an attempt to oust him.
Mr Haughey confounded his critics by defeating the challenge, but the writing was on the wall. It was also in November 1991 that Mr Ben Dunne says he called to Mr Haughey's home and handed him three bank drafts totalling Pounds 210,000. He told the tribunal that the Taoiseach looked like a broken man.
Mr Haughey denies ever receiving such drafts, but there is no denying that by then his lengthy domination of the Irish political scene was almost at an end.
