Analysis: No new names were disclosed yesterday in relation to the money the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, received during a visit to Manchester in 1993, writes Colm Keena.
Last week, in calling for Mr Ahern to give details concerning the Manchester payment, the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, set out a number of questions he would like to see answered.
However, only a few of the questions posed by Mr McDowell were answered by Mr Ahern yesterday. The most glaring failure was in relation to disclosing any new names.
The Taoiseach said the amount received was £7,845 sterling and that the punt equivalent, £7,938, was lodged to his personal account with the AIB on October 11th, 1994.
He said it was not possible to say, with certainty, who was there, and for this reason gave no names other than John Kennedy, a multimillionaire property developer who emigrated from Ireland in the 1950s, the former hotelier and owner of Aer Arann, the late Tim Kilroe, and Fianna Fáil senator Tony Kett. All three had already been identified as having been at the event.
Mr Ahern said he had travelled with friends to Manchester to see a Manchester United fixture and these friends had attended the hotel meeting but had not organised the payment. The only person he travelled with whom he identified was Senator Kett. He could not give any details as to how the collection came to be made but said the people who travelled with him did not know about it until afterwards.
While there was no formal speech, he did say "a few words" and answer questions, he said.
Mr Ahern answered two of Mr McDowell's questions when he said the money was a gift that he lodged to his personal account.
Mr Ahern revealed that he lodged the Manchester receipts at the same time he lodged the second of the amounts he said were lent to him by friends.
This indicates that the £16,500 which Mr Ahern mentioned last week, and which came from four donors, was raised some time around October 1994. That is quite some time after the initial loan, of £22,500, which came from eight donors and was given to him in Christmas 1993.
The second payment was organised by publican Dermot Carew and the first by Mr Ahern's solicitor, the late Gerry Brennan, as well as former Fianna Fáil fund-raiser Des Richardson.
In direct response to the Fine Gael leader, Enda Kenny, Mr Ahern said the second loan, the £16,500, was not used to assist him purchase a house. He said he used a loan from the Irish Permanent for this purpose. It still remains unclear how Mr Carew's collection came about and what it was intended for.
Mr Ahern has already stated that the initial payment, the £22,500, was used to settle a bank loan he had taken out to pay legal bills. He was asked why he took out a loan to settle his legal bills when, by his own admission, he had £50,000 in savings at the time. He did not answer this question.
He was also asked how a £5,000 payment from NCB brokers fitted in with his description of the £22,500 payment as being a loan from friends. Mr Ahern said the £5,000 came by way of a bank draft and not an NCB cheque. He said the Bank of Ireland draft came from the then managing director of NCB, Padraic O'Connor, and did not indicate who had paid for the draft.
Mr Ahern said he had repaid the 1993 and 1994 loans. The amount was €90,867. In the case of the £5,000 payment, he said he had repaid the money to Mr O'Connor.
He did not dispute the contention that the money may have come from NCB rather than Mr O'Connor personally, but he did not comment further.
He has said on a number of occasions that he tried previously to repay the money, but the donors would not accept it.
Yesterday he said he had not gone back to all of the donors seeking to return the money. He did not say if Mr O'Connor had been one of the persons approached as part of his earlier efforts to repay the loans.
Mr Ahern has said previously that he did not have a personal bank account for a number of years up to, seemingly, the end of 1993 or early 1994. Yesterday, in response to Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte, he again confirmed this and stated, in relation to the £50,000 that he saved during this period, that he "did keep money in his own possession".
Mr Ahern was not asked how exactly this deposit of £50,000 into a new account, opened in his name in and around 1993/1994, fits in with the Mahon (planning) tribunal's inquiries into his financial affairs.