Ahern evidence:Bertie Ahern has said he would have returned an stg£8,000 contribution from a group of Manchester businessmen if he had known the "grief" it would subsequently cause him. Paul Cullenreports.
Mr Ahern also revealed that he may have kept the money in his safe in Drumcondra for up to six months before lodging it with other sums in the bank in 1994.
He denied there was anything untoward about the contribution from a group of Manchester-based businessmen from the local Irish community or that he had attempted to hide it.
Mr Ahern said the event at which the contribution was made took place on a Friday evening before a Manchester United fixture, either at the end of the football season or the start of the next one. The date was either May or September 1994, but the money wasn't lodged until October that year. Over 30 years, he attended Manchester United matches on a regular basis, he said, and was present for up to 15 games a season.
On this occasion, he stayed in the Four Seasons hotel in Manchester owned by the late Tim Kilroe, a wealthy Irish emigrant businessman with interests on both sides of the Irish Sea. He had an informal meal in the hotel restaurant with a group of some 20 Irish businessmen during which he answered questions about the Irish economy.
He said he met the same group many times before and after this, and knew about half of them well.
After the meal, they went into the bar, where Mr Kilroe and one or two others told him they would like to make a contribution. On previous occasions, Mr Ahern said, he had received gifts of books and Waterford glass but on this occasion only, they made a financial contribution.
Mr Ahern said he asked whether they were making a political contribution, which he would have to give to Fianna Fáil, but he was told it was a personal contribution and had nothing to do with the party.
He was handed an envelope but didn't know what was in it. "I wish he had just given me a season ticket for Manchester United, it would have been more appreciated." The contribution was given because he had attended a number of functions and that night he had stayed with the group and answered many detailed questions, Mr Ahern said.
There was no question of a whip-around taking place, as media reports had suggested. These were serious business people and big investors and everyone of them was worth at least £50 million at the time. He considered them friends.
"They are people I know and respect. They have employed substantial amounts of Irish people, they have invested in this country after emigrating out of it during hard times. They have put money into the Irish centre and the Irish community and are very pro-Irish. They would do anything to promote the name of Ireland." Mr Ahern agreed the contribution was entirely undocumented. He didn't remember counting or looking at the money until he got back to Ireland the following Monday. His recollection was that the envelope contained notes of big denominations, probably all stg£50. The total was about stg£8,000.
He was surprised to have received such a sizable sum, although for the men concerned the it probably wasn't that big.
Mr O'Neill asked whether there was any difference between such a function in the UK and a similar event taking place in Ireland. Mr Ahern said he had been 27 years on the "chicken and chips" circuit in Ireland and he couldn't recall a similar donation. Sometimes, there would be a collection and it would go to the party but "you're unlikely to get a pint off them".
Asked if he felt compromised by the receipt of a substantial amount of money from business people with interests in Britain and Ireland, the Taoiseach said Mr Kilroe had never asked him to do anything untoward at any stage. While he would be concerned about the possibility of being compromised, he was careful about these things.
Asked what steps he took to ensure the contribution was "above board", he said the fact that he lodged it to his account in AIB showed he wasn't hiding it.
However, Mr O'Neill said the money was combined with other sums in a £25,000 lodgement so it was effectively unidentifiable. "If I thought getting £8,000 in Manchester in the 1994/95 season would have caused me all the grief it has caused me, I would have given it back. If I ever thought I was going to be sitting here there's a whole lot of things I wouldn't have done, not that they were right or wrong, just that it would be easier not to." If he had thought the payment was wrong he wouldn't have lodged it on the main street of Dublin in one of the country's biggest banks.
He may have sent Mr Kilroe a written acknowledgment but he didn't think he had. Things weren't done this way nowadays and "maybe I shouldn't have done it then".
Mr Ahern said he lodged money in October 1994, having kept it in his safe up to then. He didn't lodge it as soon as possible because "it wasn't £800,000, it was £8,000. It was no big deal".
He could have spent some of the money, possibly on return trips to Manchester.