It’s those little things that always get you in the end

World of Politics with Harry McGee

Albert Reynolds’ greatest legacy to the language of politics was his philosophical reflection on the sudden end to his time as Taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fáil.

“It’s the little things that trip you up,” he ruefully admitted – and he made a fair point.

He was the Taoiseach who delivered the Downing Street Declaration and the IRA’s first ceasefire in August 1994. Yet he fell on his sword because of a row that was so obscure that few people now remember it, and fewer people remember what it was.

It was the Duggan case, which was about a sexual abuser whose extradition might, or might not, have been handled with appropriate speed.

When they looked into the case afterwards – properly – there wasn’t all that much to it.

But the problem for Reynolds was a political one. The controversy erupted on the back of another case, that of the notorious paedophile priest, Brendan Smyth who had fled from Belfast to an abbey in Co Cavan in 1991, after the RUC tried to arrest him on charges of attempting to abuse four children in one family.

For three years, he had refuge in the Abbey while Irish authorities procrastinated on his extradition.

When the scandal over the delayed extradition erupted, Albert Reynolds and his then attorney general Harry Whelehan were caught in the crosshairs.

He managed to survive the political storm that ensued – just about.

So when news of another case – the Duggan case – was broken, Albert was a gonner. That despite the fact the Duggan case did not prove to be the sum of its parts at the end.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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