 Despite the strains in relations between the United Kingdom and Ireland in the wake of those events, the then British Ambassador, Sir John Peck, praised Lynch, of whom he said "all those concerned with, and committed to, peace with justice in the North owe a very great deal to his courage and tenacity", adding that "I do not think that I ever succeeded in convincing British politicians of how much we owed him at that stage, or what the consequences would have been if he had lost his head".Lynch's attitude towards the Northern Ireland question and the application of Fianna Fáil party policy to it would eventually come to define his first period as Taoiseach, and would once again show his critics that far from being "reluctant" he was in fact a strong and decisive leader.His strong leadership skills and determination were clearly evident in 1970, when allegations (later disproved in court, though questions since have emerged challenging that verdict in one case), that the hardline republican Minister for Agriculture, Neil Blaney, and the Minister for Finance, Charles Haughey, were involved in an attempt to use £100,000 in aid money to import arms for the Provisional IRA.