He was elected a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin in 1969 and promoted to associate professor of Economics there in 1970.
[2] He was chief author of the election manifesto which saw Fianna Fáil achieve an unprecedented twenty-seat majority.
O'Donoghue was appointed Minister for Economic Planning and Development on his first day in office as a TD.
He resigned from the government in October 1982, when he refused to support Haughey in a leadership challenge, and in November 1982 lost his Dáil seat at the general election.
In 1998, he became a director of the Central Bank of Ireland, serving with this and its successor body until the end of April 2008.