An analysis of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern's finances prepared for the Mahon tribunal last year failed to mention the involvement of a number of sterling cash transactions, the tribunal was told yesterday. Colm Keena, Public Affairs Correspondent reports.
Accountant Des Peelo prepared a report for Mr Ahern on his finances which was adopted by Mr Ahern and submitted by Mr Ahern to the tribunal in April 2006.
The report outlined how £50,000 was withdrawn from Mr Ahern's accounts in AIB O'Connell Street in December 1994. The money was given to Mr Ahern's then partner, Celia Larkin, for the purposes of organising the "fit-out" of a house Mr Ahern was preparing to rent.
During 1995 expenditure of £30,000 occurred on the house, according to the report. "The sum of £19,142.92 was the balance remaining from the £50,000 and was relodged on December 1st, 1995 to Mr Ahern's already existing AIB deposit account," the report stated on Mr Ahern's behalf.
Mr Ahern was interviewed in private by the tribunal earlier this year and significantly altered or added to this version of events. The differences were outlined yesterday by counsel for the tribunal, Des O'Neill SC.
Mr O'Neill said the tribunal has now been told that the £50,000 given to Ms Larkin in December 1994, and lodged by her to accounts in her name, was withdrawn by her in cash in January 1995, and given back to Mr Ahern.
Mr Ahern then used some of this money to purchase £30,000 sterling cash, which he then placed in his safe until June 1995. In that month he gave stg£10,000 back to Ms Larkin, who was organising the fit- out of the house. Ms Larkin lodged the money in one of her accounts.
In December 1995 Mr Ahern then lodged the remaining £20,000 sterling which he still had in his safe, back into his account in AIB.
Mr O'Neill said Mr Peelo's report did not assist the tribunal by identifying the December 1995 lodgment as a sterling transaction. "What we see here [in the report] is Mr Ahern saying I gave Ms Larkin £50,000, she spent £30,000, she gave me back the rest and I lodged the money into the account."
Mr O'Neill's comments came as the tribunal continued its inquiries into four foreign exchange transactions linked to Mr Ahern's accounts in 1994 and 1995. The tribunal yesterday spent its second day examining AIB official Jim McNamara who worked in the AIB branch on O'Connell Street in the 1990s. He said he was first contacted by Mr Ahern's office in December 2004.
The tribunal was at that stage seeking information concerning his finances from Mr Ahern, covering a period between 1988 to 1995. However Mr Ahern's and Ms Larkin's queries to the bank were about specific transactions in 1994 and 1995 that have since become the focus of the tribunal's attention. Mr McNamara said neither Mr Ahern nor Ms Larkin told him of the involvement of foreign currency.