Initially, Donogh's widow Hilda was asked by Fianna Fáil to stand in the coming by-election to try and retain the seat for the party.

[citation needed] Blaney would subsequently deeply regret aiding O'Malley in his election as he always felt that Des was in the wrong party.

O'Malley had a central role in the case for the prosecution against the government ministers Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney that arose from the Arms Crisis of 1970.

It has been alleged by numerous scholars that O'Malley was aware of Taoiseach Jack Lynch's lawful efforts to procure arms for northern Nationalists, to be kept under lock and key at a secure location at a monastery in County Cavan, and the training of young men, hand-picked by the Citizens' Defence Committees to be instructed in their use by the Irish Defence Forces.

It has been alleged that O'Malley was aware of a ministerial memo [8] that unambiguously stated: The Taoiseach and other Ministers have met delegations from the North.

Owing to a lack of sufficient space, all but 150 rifles were returned south immediately, and the remainder in May 1970, ostensibly due to a fear the barracks could be raided by the IRA.

This memo, as with the one above, was not admitted as evidence at the Arms Trial, perhaps because it might have aroused suspicion as to the Irish Department of Defence's intentions in moving so many weapons and for what purpose.

It has been suggested that the arms were to be temporarily stored there whilst Captain James Kelly procured the intended weapons from Germany, under instruction from the Defence Minister, Jim Gibbons and the Army Director of Intelligence, Colonel Michael Hefferon.

His status would in all probability have continued but for documents found in the home of a retired Irish/American and a former Clann na Gael Treasurer, James CONATY, Drumshirk, Stradone.

That MacStíofáin should have been in receipt of State funds and regarded as an Informant must, to any sane objective person, appear the height of improbability but it is a fact.

You know how the PROVOS were formed, how SAOR EIRE acted as their Financial agents in the Republic so as not to incur the disapproval of the State against the Provos and until disenchantment about MacStíofáin occurred in July 1972 his immunity was at a reasonable level.O’Malley knew that there was an informer because he mentions this fact in his memoirs – where he reveals that the Garda received a "tip-off" from an informer about the arms importation attempt that sparked the Arms Crisis of 1970.

The informer was Seán Mac Stíofáin, who did so to discredit the Jack Lynch government and prevent the development of a potential rival military organisation - the Citizens' Defence Committees.

[11] Curiously, in Taoiseach Jack Lynch's account given to Dáil Éireann, in which no informer is mentioned and that the arms were discovered quite by accident by Dublin Airport Staff.

As Minister for Justice, O'Malley reinforced the Offences Against the State Act so that a person could be convicted of IRA membership on the word of a Garda Superintendent.

O'Malley also introduced the Forcible Entry Bill, brought in to counter student agitation over the demolition of valued buildings.

[6] Journalists sympathetic to the Official IRA and its political wing, Sinn Féin The Workers Party (from the 1982 as Workers' Party (Ireland)), in both The Irish Times and RTÉ, such as Dick Walsh, Seán Cronin, Gerry Gregg and Eoghan Harris perpetuated the myth borne out of the Arms Trial that, despite being acquitted of wrongdoing, Charles Haughey helped establish the Provisional IRA through the illegal importation of arms and lionized Taoiseach Jack Lynch and Des O'Malley as the defenders of constitutional democracy, with the latter forming the Progressive Democrats, when in fact Lynch quite lawfully ordered the importation of the arms, very likely with O'Malley's knowledge and that of others.

Onwards into the 1980s and 1990s, other Irish Times luminaries, such as Fintan O'Toole, held to this myth as an explanation to the origin of the 1970 split, owing to a deep antipathy towards Charles Haughey personally and by contrast, Des O'Malley's stature as a paragon of virtue.

But O'Malley's failure to act on intelligence concerning Seán Mac Stíofáin's activities would have exposed him as incompetent, in addition to untruthful concerning his knowledge of Jack Lynch's role in the importation of arms.

Following the 1973 general election Fianna Fáil were ousted from government for the first time in 16 years by Fine Gael and Labour, who had agreed to a pre-election pact to form a coalition should they win.

In 1979, following Jack Lynch's resignation as Taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fáil, two candidates fought in the leadership election, George Colley and Charles Haughey.

A large number of TDs quickly grew disillusioned with Haughey's leadership and threw their support behind O'Malley in an effort to oust the incumbent leader.

This set off another leadership struggle, with O'Malley, Gerry Collins, Michael O'Kennedy, Brian Lenihan and John Wilson all showing an interest in replacing Haughey.

However, an official inquiry into the telephone tapping cleared Haughey of any wrongdoing and put more blame on Martin O'Donoghue than the other TDs involved.

[13] In early 1985, the Fine Gael–Labour Party government introduced the Health (Family Planning) (Amendment) Bill 1985 to liberalise the sale of contraceptives.

A few weeks before the election a scandal broke over the accusation that Lenihan had phoned the President, Patrick Hillery in 1982, asking him not to dissolve the Dáil following the fall of Garret FitzGerald's government.

When it was revealed by Seán Doherty that Haughey had authorised the tapping of two journalists' telephones in 1982, O'Malley decided that the Progressive Democrats could no longer remain in his government.