Ray Treacy Rovers fans when his penalty against Sligo helped win the FAI Cup in 1978. Treacy almost scored a hat trick for the Republic of Ireland national football team against Turkey in April 1978. The two goals he scored (along with the game's opening goal by Johnny Giles) represent the last occasion that a home-based player has scored for the senior Irish national team until 40 years later when in June 2018, Graham Burke, also a Shamrock Rovers player, scored against the United States. Treacy represented the League of Ireland in a friendly against Argentina in the Boca Junior Stadium in
Noel Treacy the Central Development Committee. The following year he became Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach. It was in this capacity that Treacy became the State's first Minister for Heritage Affairs. Between 1989 and 1991 he served as Minister of State for Children at the Department of Health, before being appointed Minister of State at the Department of Justice with responsibility for Law Reform. In 1992 Treacy returned to the Department of Finance again before serving at the Departments of the Taoiseach, Finance, Transport, Energy and Communications during the Fianna Fáil–Labour Party government holding special responsibility for Energy.