The Taoiseach today insisted there was nothing wrong with assisting a Manchester-based businessman obtain an Irish passport in 1994.
Speaking to reporters before addressing the Forum on Europe in Dublin Castle today, Mr Ahern said: "I refute in the strongest terms the suggestion that a passport application being returned through the offices of a TD, in this case Bertie Ahern, signifies some special relationship is an absolute fallacy."
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern
It emerged last night that a passport issued to Norman Turner, a businessman involved in the Sonas consortium that planned to develop the Phoenix Park racecourse as a casino, was returned via Mr Ahern's office in August 1994. Mr Turner also donated $10,000 to Fianna Fáil via its chief fundraiser Des Richardson in that year.
Mr Ahern said: "It's common practice, one does not necessarily know the individual involved in the applications, of course I knew Norman Turner, 'cause I knew him from his involvement in the Sonas development.
"There is nothing wrong with any individual born outside the country who has Irish parents receiving an Irish passport, and that's what happened in this case."
The Taoiseach said it has happened in thousands of cases, including very prominent cases such as Eamon de Valera, Erskine Childers, Paul McGrath and Mick McCarthy.
Mr Ahern said that according to the file in the Department of Foreign Affairs, Mr Turner acquired the Irish passport because his mother was born in Co Cork in 1929.
He said: "Senior officials in the department have concluded that the application was treated in the normal manner, and the file shows that no representations were made for any special treatment to the Department of Foreign Affairs by any political figure."
Mr Ahern also said that all TDs and senators could avail of the process and that 6,200 such passports were issued under the same scheme last year.
Fine Gael environment spokesman Phil Hogan tabled parliamentary questions that reveal that a passport issued to Mr Turner on Tuesday, August 9th, 1994, was "returned through the office of Mr Bertie Ahern TD".
Mr Hogan said this "close relationship" with Mr Turner is "completely at odds with the Taoiseach's continuous claim that he opposed the casino project in Government and in Opposition".
In December, Mr Ahern dismissed claims that he gave implicit approval to the National Lottery to enter talks with Mr Turner about becoming involved in his plans for a casino in Dublin.
Mr Ahern was minister for finance at the time of the talks in the early 1990s and had political responsibility for the lottery. The contacts did not lead to a formal deal between the lottery and Mr Turner's group, Sonas, whose plans for the site of the former Phoenix Park racecourse were backed by US casino firm Ogden.
The Mahon tribunal has previously heard that Mr Turner gave $10,000 in 1994 to Des Richardson, then chief fundraiser for Fianna Fáil. Mr Turner has not cooperated with the tribunal's inquiries.
Mr Hogan said the timing of the issuing of the passport "is significant given what we now know about financial transactions involving Mr Ahern and his associates during 1994".
The Mahon tribunal is investigating a number of transactions relating to bank accounts operated by, or for, Mr Ahern in 1993 and 1994 when he was Minister for Finance.
These include a loan of £19,115.97 taken out by Mr Ahern on December 24th, 1993; a lodgement of £22,500 made to a special savings account on December 30th; a lodgement of £27,164.44 to the same special savings account on April 25th, 1994; a lodgement of £2,835.56 made to a current account on the same day; a lodgement of £20,000 to an account in the name of Mr Ahern's daughters on August 8th, 1994; and a lodgement of £24,838.49 made to Mr Ahern's account on October 11th, 1994.
The tribunal says the transactions in question are largely undocumented.
