Analysis:Fresh questions have been asked about Bertie Ahern's finances, writes Colm Keena
The lengthy opening statement read out by the Mahon tribunal's counsel yesterday directly contradicts part of the statement issued by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in the course of the election campaign.
Ahern has said a lodgment of IR£28,772.90 to AIB O'Connell Street on Monday, December 5th, 1994, was the lodgment (after it had been exchanged for Irish pounds) of sterling cash he had been given two days earlier by Manchester-based businessman, Michael Wall.
The material produced by the tribunal yesterday indicates that this could not be correct.
Ahern has said the sterling cash was handed over to him during a meeting with Wall in St Luke's, Drumcondra, the previous Saturday. The money was kept in a safe until it was lodged on the Monday by Ahern's then partner, Celia Larkin, to an account opened in her name for that purpose.
The tribunal has been told that £30,000 in large denomination sterling notes was handed over by Wall. It was to be spent for purposes linked to a house Wall was buying and which Ahern was to rent.
Ahern was expecting to be appointed taoiseach on the Tuesday, December 6th.
In his lengthy statement on his personal finances issued on May 13th last, Ahern gave the background to this transaction. He said: "The money came to about IR£28,700, mostly in sterling, though there may have been some Irish pounds as well."
Yesterday tribunal counsel Des O'Neill SC pointed out that the amount lodged "does not equate to the Irish punt amount which a customer who had exchanged exactly sterling £30,000 would have received in return".
Furthermore, records held by AIB show that only IR£1,921.55 worth of sterling was bought by AIB O'Connell Street, on the day Larkin lodged IR£28,774.90. If the bank records are correct, the lodgment made by Larkin could not have been the proceeds of a large amount of sterling cash given to Ahern by Wall.
The tribunal has looked at the exchange rates operated for other currencies on the day in question. Yesterday O'Neill, for the tribunal, said a customer who had gone into the AIB O'Connell Street with exactly $45,000 on Monday, December 5th, 1994, "would have received exactly IR£28,772.90 in exchange, applying the AIB rate appropriate to a US dollar transaction with a value of up to IR£2,500 with a deduction of the discretionary £5 commission".
Banks apply different exchange rates depending on the amount of money being exchanged. The tribunal is saying the amount lodged by Ms Larkin equates to $45,000 when an inappropriate rate of exchange is applied, ie, not the correct rate of exchange but nevertheless one of the rates that operated on the day.
O'Neill pointed out that exchange rates are worked out to four decimal points.
The chance that the odd figure amount lodged by Larkin would, by coincidence, equate exactly to the equivalent of a round figure dollar amount when one of the dollar exchange rates operated on the day is applied, must be very slim indeed.
The AIB branch on O'Connell Street does not have records for individual foreign exchange transactions carried out back in 1995, but it does have daily totals for sterling and non-sterling transactions.
As already stated, sterling worth IR£1,921.55 was bought from people who came into the bank on that day. The amount of non-sterling foreign currency purchased on the day totalled £28,969.55.
As O'Neill put it: "These records allow for a transaction involving the exchange of $45,000 to have been conducted in AIB O'Connell Street on the 5th of December 1994."
In his statement during the election campaign Ahern rejected the possibility he was associated with a dollar transaction. He also said: "At the appropriate AIB rate for dollars on that date, a lodgment of IR£28,772.90 would equate not to $45,000 but to $44,277.68."
Technically he was correct but when the inappropriate rate is applied, it does equate to $45,000 and that is one of a number of issues the tribunal is now going to inquire into in public session over the coming months.