The agricultural industry’s contacts with Albert Reynolds have received little coverage but his death has revived memories of his term as minister for industry and commerce in the 1987 period, when he was responsible for both export credit guarantees and the IDA.

Both areas involved significant contact with Larry Goodman’s AIBP Group. During this time, Charles Haughey was Taoiseach. Larry Goodman was identified by that Government as a national standard bearer.

The Beef Tribunal was set up to investigate the beef processing sector in response to a highly critical ITV report. It sat for almost three years.

Albert Reynolds was exonerated from blame, even though he had acted against strong official advice in granting mainly AIBP greatly increased export cover.

What this meant was that in the event of the Iraqis not paying for the beef, the State would pick up the bill. He was also cleared from blame when, in the five-year Goodman development plan launched in June 1987, the conditions surrounding the IDA grant aid package were altered in AIBP’s favour.

The Tribunal concluded that the alteration of the IDA conditions was done either at the instigation of the then Taoiseach [Mr Haughey] or the secretary general of his department.

I got to know Albert Reynolds reasonably well when he was minister for finance and he always struck me as a man who would back his hunches and the people he believed in. We saw that characteristic come to the fore during the peace process.

He did not go in for long, detailed briefs. He famously declared that when faced with a decision, he wanted the crucial facts presented to him on a single sheet of paper.

He brought a businessman’s approach to all his dealings and, as Taoiseach, he backed his minister for finance, Ruairi Quinn, on changing the system when the tax burden on the inter-generation transfer of family farms became a clear burden and readily agreed to change the tax treatment of herds that were wiped out with disease.

He was a worthy Taoiseach of the country – like all of us, he had some blind spots, and one of them contributed to his downfall as head of Government, but he deserves history to look favourably on his involvement in politics.