The Taoiseach reeled out of the witness box yesterday, but his ordeal at the Mahon tribunal is far from over. Miriam Lordreports from Dublin Castle.
Bertie Ahern stepped from the witness box at 4.05pm yesterday. He looked shaken. He stood alone at the top of the room for what, to him, must have seemed a long time. He seemed not to know where to go.
Cutting a lonely figure, his brow furrowed, his lips a tight, thin line, he waited until his assistant arrived up from the body of the tribunal chamber. His demeanour was that of a man who knows he is in trouble.
The Taoiseach's legal team surrounded him. But Bertie didn't seem to be listening to them. He stared into the distance, looking worried. Then he returned to character. The journalists had been watching him intently. He saw them, suddenly, a big smile spread across his face. When his little group left the room, he was laughing.
A short time later, Ahern left Dublin Castle. As he made the short walk to his waiting car, supporters, gathered behind the crash barriers, cheered loudly and applauded. But then the booing and catcalls began.
"You're a crook!" "You're a goner!" It was a telling scene, and evoked memories of a similarly charged occasion outside a different tribunal in Dublin Castle, many years ago. Obviously yesterday the scenario for Bertie was in no way as bleak and damning as it had been for former taoiseach Charles J Haughey when his reputation collapsed irrevocably around him during his first appearance at the Moriarty tribunal. This will come as small consolation today to man of the people Bertie Ahern.
Still smiling, he got into the car. "How do you feel?" shouted reporters.
"Great!" said the Taoiseach, beaming.
UNTIL YESTERDAY AFTERNOON, it had been a relatively unspectacular week at Dublin Castle. There was great interest in what two of the main players in the increasingly confused saga of the humble Taoiseach and his eyebrow-raising financial adventures in the early to mid-1990s would have to say.
But they occupied cameo roles. It was the much-awaited appearance of Bertie that everyone wanted to see.
On Tuesday, Michael Wall, a Manchester-based businessman and long-time friend of the Taoiseach, provided little clarity but more than a bit of hilarity when he struggled to remember the precise details of how he gave Ahern a briefcase containing about £30,000 sterling. His hazy recollections of clearing his safe of what was a huge amount of money back in 1994, taking it across on the ferry and leaving it in his hotel wardrobe overnight before going off to a dinner dance, had his grinning audience rocking with incredulity.
Wall's description of how he arrived unannounced the following morning at Bertie's office, plonking said cash on the desk in front of the then minister for finance, had the punters in stitches. Being in the coach-hire business, he explained how he dealt mainly in cash and always kept tens of thousands of pounds of bus-fare money in his safe. Little did the commuters of Manchester and beyond know, when they purchased their tickets to Macclesfield and Wigan, that they were contributing to the building fund for a future Irish taoiseach's conservatory.
In an earlier private interview with the Mahon tribunal, Wall confirmed twice that he had counted the money before leaving Manchester, and it came to exactly £30,000 sterling. By the time he got to the witness box, he couldn't be sure. The amount was mostly made up in English £20 notes, he mused, probably with a few thousand Irish punts as well and maybe some Bank of Scotland sterling thrown in for good measure.
He never mentioned this to Ahern when he met him at his annual fundraiser in Dublin the night before. Nonetheless, Wall recalled that Bertie didn't bat an eyelid when he presented him with the cash.
People fell to wondering: what would Gordon Brown have done in similar circumstances last June, as he prepared to go from chancellor to British prime minister? If an old pal from Ireland had landed in his Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency office a few days before he was to take over from Tony Blair and dumped today's equivalent of £30,000 in mixed notes on his desk, would his reaction have been the same as Bertie's? (A reaction which was, according to Wall, "normal", as in Ahern saying "okay" before taking the bundles of cash into the next room.) That's what happened, according to Wall's ripping yarn.
NEXT UP WAS Celia Larkin on Wednesday. There was an equal amount of interest in how Ahern's former partner, now a "style" expert and owner of a number of beauty salons, dressed and did her hair. She looked stunning, everyone agreed.
Larkin spent a day in the witness box. She was asked about the money she saw Wall giving to her then "life-partner" Bertie. She collected that briefcase of money from Ahern's office two days after it was handed over and deposited it in a new bank account in her name. She was also asked about the £50,000 that Bertie requested her to transfer from one of his accounts on the same day and place in a second new account in her name.
This might seem an overly complicated way to conduct business, but not to Celia, who knew the two large sums of money were to renovate and do up a house which wouldn't be purchased for another three months.
Like Wall, her recollection of the transactions and the events that led to them differed from what she had told the tribunal in private. Celia remained cool in the face of robust questioning from lawyer Henry Murphy, repeatedly addressing him and his colleagues by their first names.
As far as she was concerned, her sole involvement in Bertie's tangled financial affairs was as the administrator of the refurbishment fund. The house, by the way, was bought by the loyal Wall, who had intended to rent it to Ahern, who had expected to become taoiseach within a few days and urgently needed a decent house befitting his elevated status. Wall also undertook to pay for the conservatory.
A lot of money was going to be going into this recently built £138,000 house on the Beresford estate in Drumcondra. Thirty grand had been earmarked for the conservatory and, later on, stamp duty. Ahern's £50,000 was earmarked for the fit-out of the house.
At one stage, a portion of the transcript of Celia's private interview with the tribunal flashed up on the screen. She was explaining why so much had been budgeted for the redecoration. "They were interior designers, and I decided: 'Hell, I'm not going to spend all of my days going out picking curtains, this, that and the other. I will get a company to do the whole lot.' "
Larkin, who had little recollection on other matters she was asked about, and retained little documentation in relation to them, fortunately kept the invoices for the soft furnishings and stuff, which came to a breathtaking £29,000.
So that was Celia and Michael out of the way. The evidence they gave wasn't hugely convincing, and was often contradictory. But they don't really matter.
BERTIE MATTERS. AND the tribunal matters to Bertie. On his first day on the stand, he began by reasserting that he has never accepted money for improper purposes in all his years of public life. He complained he had been the subject of malicious innuendo and had been given no chance to clear his name. For seven and a half years, he had been "tormented" by rumours and allegations.
So, all day Thursday, the tribunal's Des O'Neill ground his way though a forest of correspondence between Ahern's advisers and the inquiry. At the end of the day, the Taoiseach had to concede that it had taken him two and a half years to answer a small number of specific questions asked him by the tribunal. The answers came after they threatened to summon him to public hearings to reveal the source of five identified lodgments. Finally, he told them that source was foreign currency.
It was tedious, and as Bertie sighed his way through the forensic exercise and the public gallery dropped off to sleep, sympathy seemed to be on his side. "What a waste of money, spending a day asking all these boring questions about letters. Poor Bertie has enough to do without that," commented one disgusted observer.
But yesterday, Deathly Des got down to the business of the lodgments that Bertie had been so reluctant to explain fully. The day began badly for the Taoiseach, and by the time the tribunal rose for the weekend, he was not happy. Bertie's anguished wails over the past two years about not getting a chance to tell his story to the tribunal looked more and more like the howls of a man crying wolf.
Slowly, O'Neill built up to the undeniable truth that the Taoiseach had been fully aware, since New Year's Eve 2004, of the five bank accounts that the tribunal spent two and a half years asking him about. He had asked his bank for all the documentation it had, and discovered that it didn't contain the foreign currency source of the funds. But Bertie never thought to supply that extra information to Dublin Castle.
He sat in the witness box, arms folded tightly across his chest, jaws clenched, a muscle twitching in his cheek. The thin lips, that trademark sign that tells when Bertie is unhappy, got thinner.
Conor Maguire SC, the Taoiseach's lawyer, intervened so many times that O'Neill eventually snapped: "I don't need a running commentary." There followed much sniping between the two lawyers for the rest of the day, growing in frequency and intensity as Bertie's situation grew more uncomfortable.
He was down in the schedule for two days in the box. By lunchtime, Deathly Des doubted he would finish by 4pm. After lunch, he declared it would take him at least two more days to cross-examine Ahern. But, given that he was still on the first of five lodgments by the close of proceedings, that estimate looks way off. Bertie's seven and a half years of torment is set to drag on for a while yet.
Eoghan O'Neachtain, the new Government press secretary, watched from the sidelines as Deathly Des, with his slow delivery, turned first to a figure of £24,438.49, lodged in October 1994. This money, according to the Taoiseach, was the proceeds of the Drumcondra whiparound by his pals to help him purchase a new house, and the proceeds of a whiparound for him in Manchester by another set of friends. The Drumcondra dig-out came to £16,500 and the Manchester money came to £8,000 sterling. At least that's what Bertie said before he got into the witness box. He was not at all sure yesterday.
It was the Manchester money that most concerned O'Neill. Bertie gave details of what happened and, as he told it, it sounded quite bizarre. Ahern was in Manchester to watch his beloved United. On the Friday night before the game, he met with a group of friends at the Four Seasons Hotel. These guys were well-off, much wealthier than Michael Wall, said Bertie. If Michael was wealthy, these guys were "very wealthy." One got the impression that frugal Bertie likes money more than he lets on.
They dined in the restaurant, about 20 rich businessmen who, Ahern said, had businesses in England but also invested in Ireland. During the meal, there was an informal "Q and A" with him on the Irish economy. They moved into the bar. It wasn't a speech or anything. He'd obliged them with his wisdom on other occasions, and had often been given a gift of glass or books.
But this time he got an envelope containing £8,000 sterling in £50 notes. Bertie reckoned it was because "I stayed on and talked on the economy". He was surprised when the host, businessman Tim Kilroe - now deceased - approached him and said the group "appreciated me coming over and appreciated me being there". Whereupon he pressed the envelope upon Bertie, who put it in his pocket and didn't open it until he got back to Dublin two days later.
As the questions continued, Deathly Des seemed a little disturbed that a serving finance minister should accept such a large amount from businessmen.
"It's no big deal," shrugged Bertie, the man who almost cried on national television because he was on his uppers at the time. No, it wasn't a problem. "I'd answered lots of questions on the economy."
"Some of these people were worth £50 million-plus at the time," he added with a proud smile. "These are serious people. The idea that they went around the restaurant with a hat or a plate just didn't happen."
The gallery tittered. Every time it did so, and it happened with increasing frequency as the afternoon wore on, Bertie's lips disappeared in the direction of his tonsils and his expression turned thunderous.
"For them it's not a sizeable contribution; for me, it's a sizeable contribution." The details of which he can't remember.
"In Dublin, you'd be unlikely to get even a pint off them," Ahern sniffed.
That money, eventually, was added to the Drumcondra dig-out money and lodged, he's not sure how, in the bank. In the meantime, it was in his busy safe.
Around 3pm, as the day drew to a close, the mood in the chamber changed perceptibly. People weren't laughing any more. They sat forward. One man took out binoculars and scrutinised the Taoiseach.
For the next hour, Deathly Des caused Bertie a great deal of discomfort. Citing a number of credible reasons, he demonstrated how the total of Manchester and Drumcondra monies could be translated into just one simple lodgment of £25,000 sterling.
Bertie looked defensive. He agreed that the transaction chart prepared for him (by Des Peelo, the forensic accountant he engaged to clarify his dealings) was incorrect. He hadn't supplied all the information to Peelo. Suddenly, from a man who was having difficulty in the morning with the assertion of the fact that he had "the benefit" of an account opened by Celia Larkin with his money, he was displaying a deep knowledge of how currency exchange mechanisms operate.
On the balance of probability, Deathly Des appeared to have the upper hand. Suddenly, all the complicated tales of whiparounds and dig-outs seemed just that - far too complicated. Bertie reeled out of the witness box.
The public gallery was buzzing as people left. There are four more accounts and more unusual stories to be examined.
BERTIE AHERN SAYS categorically that he can, with the help of experts, demolish the tribunal's theory. This saga has a long way to go. It will play out in Dublin Castle, within Fianna Fáil and in the wider political arena.
Ahern's stock is still high. But he had a very bad day yesterday. Much of his testimony strained credulity. If anyone can turn the situation around, he can. But if the reaction on the radio news shows is anything go by, he has good reason to worry.
There is always a tipping point. The Teflon Taoiseach can only hope it hasn't come for him.