The Taoiseach is in some difficulty over the claim by the property developer, Mr Tom Gilmartin, that Mr Ahern knows more than he has admitted to Fianna Fail, the public and, possibly, the Flood tribunal about the payment of £50,000, intended for the party, to Mr Padraig Flynn 10 years ago.
Mr Ahern's response that he has "no recollection of any telephone conversation with Mr Gilmartin and equally, therefore, I have no recollection of any conversation with him relating to contributions to the party or Mr Flynn" throws him into direct conflict with the builder, who is threatening to put a time-bomb under the Government.
If Mr Gilmartin's claim that he informed Mr Ahern in a telephone conversation in 1989 that he had given a £50,000 cheque to Mr Flynn is contained in his affidavit, it will presumably bring the Taoiseach before the Flood tribunal.
These unsubstantiated allegations that Mr Ahern had direct knowledge of the payment of £50,000 to Mr Flynn are damaging because they challenge the whole public persona cultivated by the Taoiseach since he assumed office 19 months ago.
All Mr Ahern's exhortations about co-operating with the tribunals, cleansing Fianna Fail, distancing himself from Mr Charles Haughey and Mr Ray Burke, and introducing a new code of conduct for the party over and above the requirements of the ethics legislation would be set at naught if Mr Gilmartin could prove that he informed Mr Ahern in a telephone conversation in 1989 of the £50,000, intended for Fianna Fail, paid to Mr Flynn.
This matter came up, according to Mr Gilmartin in yesterday's Sunday Independent, after Mr Ahern, then minister for labour, raised during a telephone conversation the question of him making a financial contribution to the party.
"I was stunned," said Mr Gilmartin. "I couldn't believe what I was hearing because, a few months earlier, I had given £50,000 to Fianna Fail. I told him I gave that cheque to Padraig Flynn. He didn't say anything to that."
These allegations, unlike all others about Mr Burke, Mr Haughey and Mr Flynn, bring the Taoiseach directly into the line of fire of the Flood tribunal for the very first time. They present Mr Ahern with a serious credibility problem which could, eventually, destabilise his minority Government.
Mr Ahern has been given the benefit of the doubt, so far, over his less-than-open handling of the money controversies plaguing his party in the last 19 months.
Now that the main characters in the Joseph Murphy Structural Engineering saga have been put in context, the inadequacy of Mr Ahern's internal inquiry into Mr James Gogarty's allegation that £30,000, £40,000 or £80,000 was paid to Mr Ray Burke during the 1989 general election is abundantly clear.
Claiming publicly to have climbed up every tree in north Dublin in pursuit of the truth before appointing him minister for foreign affairs, Mr Ahern has subsequently admitted that "when I questioned Mr Burke, I was assured by him there was nothing troubling him or that he could not stand over". He never asked Mr Burke the direct question.
Furthermore, following questions from The Irish Times at one of the final press conferences during the election campaign, Mr Ahern sent his colleague, Mr Dermot Ahern, to London to meet Mr Joseph Murphy jnr about the Gogarty allegations two days before the appointment of the Cabinet.
Mr Murphy, on behalf of himself and his father, denied participating in any meeting with Mr Burke at which money was handed over. The inquiry stopped there.
The superficial nature of the Taoiseach's inquiries was fully exposed when the controversy over the payment of the second £30,000 to Mr Ray Burke during the 1989 election broke out last May. The cheque, payable to cash, came from Rennicks Manufacturing Ltd, a subsidiary of Fitzwilton plc.
Mr Ahern then informed the Dail that he first became aware of the Rennicks donation while the party was preparing an affidavit for the Flood tribunal last March. He only informed the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, about the payment three months later when the controversy became public.
Furthermore, Fianna Fail did not inform the Flood tribunal that Mr Burke received £30,000 from Rennicks in the sworn affidavit furnished to the tribunal on April 1st. The party only told the tribunal that the party had received £10,000 passed to it by Mr Burke during the general election.
From that date onwards, the Taoiseach has attempted to steer clear of party controversies while professing the fullest co-operation of Fianna Fail and the Government with the two sitting tribunals.
He did not question Ms Beverley Cooper-Flynn on the National Irish Bank allegations. He did not question Mr Liam Lawlor about the payments of £3,500 a month over three or four months which he has admitted receiving from Mr Gilmartin. Up to yesterday, he has deliberately made no direct comment on the substance of the Flynn allegations.
Is it stretching credibility too far to state that he has "no recollection" of that kind of telephone conversation? Why could he not issue a direct denial?
