Lenihan was popular and widely seen as humorous and intelligent.

Currie later remarked that Lenihan was his personal friend, and that he felt personally sick at being asked to endorse somebody he did not like, for the sake of beating Lenihan.

Lenihan denied he had pressured the President but then a tape was produced of an ' on the record ' interview he had given to a postgraduate student the previous May in which he frankly discussed attempting to apply pressure.

Lenihan's role in the event in 1982, seemed to imply that he could be instructed by Haughey in his duties, and that in effect electing Lenihan was in effect empowering the controversial Haughey.

This plan, suggested by Brian Lenihan and Donogh O ' Malley, was dropped after opposition by Trinity College students.

Though publicly Taoiseach Charles Haughey insisted that it was entirely a matter for Lenihan, his " friend of thirty years " and that he was putting no pressure on him, in reality he gave Lenihan a letter of resignation to sign.

Haughey angrily denied the charge, though Lenihan, in his subsequently published account of the affair, noted that Haughey had denied " insulting " the officer, whereas the allegation was that he had " threatened " him.

The Presidential election was disappointing for Haughey with Brian Lenihan, the Tánaiste, who was nominated as the party's candidate, being defeated by Mary Robinson.

Lenihan was accused of calling and attempting to influence the President, who as Head of State is above politics.

It is suggested that Haughey was forced by O ' Malley to sack Lenihan in order to save the government, and stay on as Taoiseach.

* In May 1989 one of Haughey's lifelong friends Brian Lenihan, a former government minister, underwent a liver transplant which was partly paid for through fundraising by Haughey.

The tribunal identified one specific donation of £ 20, 000 for Lenihan that was surreptitiously appropriated by Haughey, who took steps to conceal this transaction.

In 1990 as part of his postgraduate thesis for his Master of Arts in Political Science Duffy interviewed senior politicians, one of whom was the then Tánaiste, Brian Lenihan.

In October 1990, in the midst of the presidential election, FitzGerald was to be a guest, alongside Lenihan, on RTÉ1's Questions and Answers political debate programme.

When challenged on the programme Lenihan maintained that his October 1990 version was correct, denying that he had played " any hand, act of part " in attempts to pressurise President Hillery.

FitzGerald aggressively challenged Lenihan, saying " I was in the Áras, Brian, and I know how many calls there were.

Aware that Lenihan had been one of Duffy's sources for the original article in September, with Duffy's permission the Irish Times ran a front page story stating that Lenihan had made the calls he was now denying.

Lenihan tried in a subsequent live television interview on the Six-One News to insist that what he had said to Duffy was wrong, insisting that " on mature recollection " his October 1990 version was the correct one, and all that he had said previously over eight years was incorrect.

She defeated Fianna Fáil's Brian Lenihan and Fine Gael's Austin Currie in the 1990 presidential election becoming, as an Independent candidate nominated by the Labour Party, the Workers ' Party and independent senators, the first elected president in the office's history not to have had the support of Fianna Fáil.

* November 1 – Mary Robinson defeats odds-on favourite Brian Lenihan to become the first female President of Ireland.

Younger men such as Brian Lenihan, Charles Haughey, Patrick Hillery and Michael Hilliard were all given their first Cabinet portfolios by Lemass, and ministers who joined under de Valera, such as Jack Lynch, Neil Blaney and Kevin Boland were promoted by the new Taoiseach.

He first achieved prominence in 1990 when the contents of his on-the-record interview with then Tánaiste Brian Lenihan, in which Lenihan admitted making calls to the residence of the Irish president seeking to speak to President Hillery to urge him to refuse a Dáil dissolution in controversial circumstances ( something he had previously denied ), led to Lenihan's dismissal from government, his defeat in that year's Irish presidential election and the unexpected election of the left wing liberal Mary Robinson as President of Ireland.

He decided to raise the issue of the calls again on the programme, given that in the preceding week Lenihan changed his story of eight years and had now denied twice, first in a student debate, then in an Irish Press interview with Emily O ' Reilly, making any calls.

Lenihan went on to become the first candidate from his party ever to lose an Irish presidential election, with the Irish Labour Party candidate, Mary Robinson, eventually winning the office.

Lenihan first entered politics in 1954 when he ran as a Fianna Fáil candidate in Longford-Westmeath in that year's general election.

O ' Rourke and her brother, Brian Lenihan, became the first brother and sister in Irish history to serve in the same cabinet.

Lenihan was first elected to Dáil Éireann at the 1997 general election.

Lenihan, previously a large framed man, had been reduced to a bone-thin jaundiced-looking shadow of his former self, so ill-looking that the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Tom King, said afterwards that on seeing Brian at an Anglo-Irish Conference meeting, he had speculated as to whether Lenihan would die at the meeting.

Speculation abounded that this was part of a plan to discourage other parties from running candidates in the belief that Lenihan would prove unbeatable and so get the office unopposed.

Speaking at the publication of the NAMA legislation in September 2009, Mr. Lenihan said it would " strengthen and improve " the funding positions of the banks " so that they can lend to viable businesses and households ".

In the wake of this controversy, May asked Lenihan not to launch the book " because I am so embarrassed that the Minister for Science has been so insulted " and " eviscerated " on a political website.

Some journalists had been told by Lenihan previously of his role in pressurising Hillery, but had been told it in an ' off the record ' conversation and so could not reveal it ( though one did hint it in an unsigned editorial in the Irish Independent during the crisis following the programme ).

The possibility of transfers increased Robinson's chances if only Lenihan could be further weakened.

Lenihan became the only candidate from his party to date to lose the presidency, having begun the campaign as the apparent certain winner.

Of the four Fianna Fáil candidates Lenihan was the only one not to be elected.

Patrick Lenihan was the only member of his family to serve in the Dáil who was not appointed a minister at some stage in his career.

Fianna Fáil chose Tánaiste and Minister for Defence, Brian Lenihan.

Notwithstanding, Fianna Fáil knew they could count on Lenihan to mount a barnstorming campaign in the last few weeks.

It emerged during the campaign that what Lenihan had told friends and insiders in private flatly contradicted his public statements on a controversial effort in 1982 by the then opposition Fianna Fáil to pressure President Hillery into refusing a parliamentary dissolution to then Taoiseach, Garret FitzGerald ; Hillery had resolutely rejected the pressure.

Three candidates had been nominated in the 1990 presidential election: the then Tánaiste, Brian Lenihan from Fianna Fáil ( widely viewed as the certain winner ), Austin Currie from Fine Gael and Mary Robinson from Labour.

The failure to get the Fianna Fáil candidate, Brian Lenihan, elected as President of Ireland added to the pressure on Haughey's leadership.

Duffy became the subject of mounting political and media pressure, with his silence being spun by Fianna Fáil press staff as evidence that the rumours that Lenihan had confirmed to him that he had made calls were false.

When he got there, he was informed that a series of telephone calls had been made by senior opposition figures ( and some independent TDs ), including Fianna Fáil leader ( and ex-Taoiseach ) Charles Haughey, Brian Lenihan and Sylvester Barrett demanding that the President, as he could constitutionally do where a Taoiseach had ' ceased to retain the support of a majority in Dáil Éireann ', refuse FitzGerald a parliamentary dissolution, forcing his resignation as Taoiseach and enabling the Dáil to nominate someone else for the post.

Initially, Fianna Fáil's Brian Lenihan had been favourite to win, however after a number of controversies arising from the brief Fianna Fáil administration of 1981 – 82, and Lenihan's dismissal as Minister for Defence mid-way through the campaign, the Labour Party's Mary Robinson emerged victorious.

In 1990 Fianna Fáil's nominee in the presidential election was Brian Lenihan.

Brian Patrick Lenihan ( 17 November 1930 – 1 November 1995 ) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician, who served in a range of cabinet positions, most notably as Tánaiste ( deputy Prime Minister ), Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Justice.

Lenihan sat for many years as a Fianna Fáil representative in both houses of the Irish parliament, Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann.

Lenihan moved his political base from rural Roscommon to Dublin County West, where he was elected again as a TD at the 1977 general election landslide victory by Fianna Fáil.

Haughey, seeking to weaken the faction supporting Colley, appointed Lenihan as Minister for Foreign Affairs, a post he held until Fianna Fáil lost power in 1981.

In 1982, when Fianna Fáil regained power for ten months, Lenihan was Minister for Agriculture, the announcement in the Dáil being greeted by a sustained round of laughter on the opposition benches.

In 1987 Fianna Fáil returned to power and Lenihan was for the third and final time appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs, with the additional post of Tánaiste ( deputy prime minister ).

In January 1990 leaks to the media suggested that Lenihan was considering seeking the Fianna Fáil nomination in the Irish presidential election, which was due in November 1990.

During leadership campaigns against Charles Haughey in the 1980s, Lenihan had regularly appeared on television to insist that Fianna Fáil was not divided, even as ministers were resigning and fisticuffs broke out in the environs of Leinster House.

When Lenihan's campaign manager, Bertie Ahern, named Duffy on radio as someone who had interviewed Lenihan back in May, a political storm erupted in which the journalist was put under siege by the media and Fianna Fáil, leading to his reluctant decision, after consulting with lawyers, to release the portion of the tape in which Lenihan talked about the events of January 1982.

The Progressive Democrats, Fianna Fáil's coalition partner, told Charles Haughey that unless Lenihan was either dismissed or an inquiry set up into the events of January 1982 it would pull out of government, support the opposition motion and force a general election.