'Lost Taoiseach' Reynolds is up there with the finest
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AS his ailing health forces Albert Reynolds to withdraw from public life, he can retire in the knowledge he is assured of a highly respected place in the hierarchy of Taoisigh.
His signing of the historic Downing Street Declaration with British Prime Minister John Major, which became the landmark signposting the tortuous route ahead to the final establishment of peace and political partnership in the North, has cemented his legacy.
On domestic policy, it was the skilful negotiation by the 'Longford Leader' of a bonanza €8bn worth of EU structural funds from Brussels that laid the infrastructural foundations for the prosperity decade enjoyed by the Celtic Tiger economy. It was this dual prospect of playing a pivotal role with Albert in Northern policy and of sharing this EU booty which enticed Labour leader Dick Spring to reverse his visceral distrust of Fianna Fail to enter government with Reynolds, rather than with Fine Gael's John Bruton, after the massive upsurge in the Labour vote in the 1992 general election.
Spring's fateful decision rescued Albert from being Taoiseach heading only one Government, that of the FF-PD coalition which Charles Haughey negotiated with Des O'Malley after the 1989 general election.
Speaking out against 'temporary little arrangements', Reynolds, when he replaced the deposed Haughey in 1991, revelled in a showdown with O'Malley, which duly and calculatedly took place at the Beef Tribunal.
The heavy losses incurred by Fianna Fail in the ensuing election spelled doom for Albert, until, Houdini-like, he secured the commitment at an EU summit in Edinburgh to massive funding of Ireland's transport and communications system. Spring opted for the gold and the glory.
Ironically, it was Albert's quickness of decision-making, combined with a stubbornness not to be deflected from his chosen course of action, that were also to be his undoing at crucial moments in his meteoric but tempestuous public career.
This was highlighted in Spring's growing frustration with Albert's addiction to holding secret meetings with representatives of Sinn Fein- IRA, as well as loyalist paramilitaries.
Albert's quasi-belief in his omnipotence as Taoiseach came to the boil with the irate Spring when he would not back off in his decision to appoint Harry Whelehan, the attorney general, as a High Court judge.
In Labour's eyes, Harry was the architect of the Government's flawed approach to abortion referendums. The scene was set for Labour demanding a head -- and that head was Albert's.
Thus Bruton became Taoiseach by accident in late 1994 when Spring forced Reynolds' resignation amid the confusion over the extradition to the North of the notorious paedophile monk, Fr Brendan Smyth. Spring, an aspirant rotating Taoiseach, secured a Dail majority for the formation of the Rainbow FG-Labour-Democratic Left coalition under Bruton's de jure leadership, rather than with the new untested Fianna Fail leader, Bertie Ahern.
Albert's approach to politics was essentially that of a businessman, not that of the traditional professional public representative who served his apprenticeship in local councils before graduating to the Dail.
His psyche as "a one-page man" came from his successful entrepreneurship in making dog food a thriving business in the Midlands. From Rooskey, in Co Roscommon, and educated at Summerhill College, he made his way in life as a promoter of dance halls, and appeared on television dressed as a cowboy, which led to his being labelled the leader of 'the country and western wing' of Fianna Fail.
First elected to the Dail in Jack Lynch's landslide victory in 1977, Reynolds joined his Sligo neighbour Ray MacSharry in supporting Charles Haughey for Taoiseach two years later, and was rewarded by 'The Boss' with being appointed Minister for Post and Telegraphs that assigned him the task of making Ireland's phones work.
On Haughey's return to power in 1987, Reynolds was again rewarded with the post of Minister for Industry and Commerce, a role which made a central figure in Ireland's economic revival after years of recession.
Reynolds became Finance Minister and Taoiseach-in-waiting when, the following year, Ray MacSharry went off to the EU Commission in Brussels.
After his premature resignation as Taoiseach, an office in which he came closest to Sean Lemass in resoluteness of decision-making, Albert believed that his political redemption was at hand when his successor Bertie Ahern encouraged him to stand for the Presidency in 1997. But too many FF deputies harboured lingering grudges against Albert for his whole-scale sacking of Haugheyites in his first administration such as Ray Burke and Gerry Collins.
Cunning Bertie actually showed his voting card to the Longfordman to console him after he lost out to the outsider, Mary McAleese. Albert acted with dignity that day but nursed deep suspicions about his successor's treachery, which have become a certitude in his own mind.
Though he took unconcealed pleasure in Bertie's resignation last April over his personal financial affairs at the Mahon Tribunal, Albert remained supportive of his successor's efforts in bringing peace to the North.
History will rank Albert Reynolds as Ireland's "Lost Taoiseach" and will ponder how he would have performed as head of state had he been elected president.
