[3] Noonan supported Charles Haughey in his successful bid at the 1979 Fianna Fáil leadership election.
He owned a 100-acre dairy farm in Crean, where Haughey formally opened an extension to the milking parlour in 1980.
[2] After the 1989 general election Fianna Fáil went into coalition with the Progressive Democrats, and Noonan was the major casualty to accommodate the new ministers.
He was appointed Minister of State at the Department of the Marine and remained in this office until February 1992, when Albert Reynolds became Taoiseach, and Noonan was not re-appointed.
[6] In a statement released after his expulsion he attacked Ahern, accusing him of "destroying" Fianna Fáil and described his leadership as a "dictatorship".