Political Career
He began his political career when he was elected to Dáil Éireann as a Labour Party TD for Dublin South–West at the 1965 general election. He held a seat for the Party until the 1981 general election when he was expelled for refusing to stand in the Dublin West constituency. Instead he stood as an independent in Dublin South–Central, opposing the Labour leader, Frank Cluskey. O'Connell, always a large vote-getter, easily topped the poll and Cluskey lost his Dáil seat.
O'Connell was then elected as Ceann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann, and resigned from the European Parliament, to which he had been elected as an MEP for the Dublin constituency in the first direct elections in 1979. He remained as Ceann Comhairle until December 1982, being returned automatically in the two elections of 1982. In 1983 he became a member of Fianna Fáil, representing the party until he lost his Dáil seat at the 1987 general election. That year he was one of those nominated by the Taoiseach Charles Haughey to the 18th Seanad Éireann, serving until he regained his Dáil seat at the 1989 general election.
O'Connell supported Albert Reynolds after he resigned from the Cabinet and is seen as one who persuaded Haughey to resign when he did. O'Connell was appointed Minister for Health by Reynolds in 1992 and was the Minister responsible for loosening the Catholic Church's stranglehold on family planning and contraception law in Ireland. Condom machines, previously banned, were legalised by O'Connell in a concerted effort to change the focus from morality to practicality. O'Connell remained as Minister for Health until 1993 when he resigned from the Dáil and the Cabinet due to ill health.
Further controversy surrounded O'Connell's relationship with Charles Haughey in later years during the Moriarty Tribunal when it was revealed that O'Connell was the conduit of moneys between Arab tycoon Mahmoud Fustok and Haughey, and it was further revealed that O'Connell had invested a significant sum in Celtic Helicopters, the business venture of Haughey's son Ciaran.
In the 1970s he arranged a meeting in his home between Harold Wilson MP, then leader of the British Labour Party, and Dáithí Ó Conaill, member of the Provisional IRA army council. Negotiations that night to broker a ceasefire were successful in the short term but ultimately broke down.
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