Alan Dukes

Gay burn used to be down there.

Alan Dukes is still comes down and has been coming down for years.

So it was a place to be seen the paddock of Mandela.

And it was, it was very flash, very glamorous, you know, and, uh, it was, it was hugely successful all through the seventies.

Most of the party TDs were based in rural Ireland.

And there was always a tension behind the scenes that became more open then in the generation following Gareth Fitzgerald, when you had two of his political stepchildren, Alan Dukes and John Bruton.

battling it out over a decade and a half for control of Fianna Ghael.

Alan Dukes would have been an urban social Democrat.

One was that the international economic situation changed drastically, not drastically, it changed remarkably, and made it easier to confront the budget deficit issue.

And also, Fine Gael, through Alan Dukes, agreed to support the government in rectifying the economy.

Hoya had failed to get an overall majority in 1987 and therefore Alan Dukes' promise not to use the opposition to do what Hoya would have done in similar circumstances to oppose the government.

And those three factors were really significant in what was achieved in 1987.

he calls a general election in 1989, doesn't get the majority he was hoping for and is forced to go into coalition with his hated enemy, Dez O'Malley.

And I remember the opinion poll ratings for Fianna Fáil for those two years were in the 50s.

That's why they made that disastrous decision to go for an election in 89, which was a totally unnecessary election.

But that decisive action, Ray McSharry deserves huge credit, and Vincent Wright, Alan Dukes, I think deserves massive credit, and I don't think has ever really received the recognition for what he did.

He was lucky that The international economic scene changed radically and interest rates dropped down.

Finnegale, under Alan Dukes, agreed to support the government of the day, even though the government of the day didn't have an overall majority.

But McSharry carried out the necessary changes to ensure that we didn't

go broke.

And he, but let it be said, he along with Ray McShy, and Ray McShy had spine and wasn't going to be bullied by him.

And also Alan Dukes.

Yes.

Finnegan supported him.