MR Ben Dunne is prepared to hand over all papers and affidavits to the tribunal of inquiry into the payments to politicians by March 12th, including the document which has given rise to allegations that £1.1 million was paid to a senior Fianna Fail figure.
That document in itself will not prove a politician was the beneficiary of huge payments from Dunnes Stores in the early 1990s. Informed sources said yesterday that all that can be shown to have been paid is £700,000 to £800,000, not £1.1 million as originally alleged.
The information received by The Irish Times suggests that Mr Dunne knows the intended beneficiary of the £700,000 to £800,000, but does not name that person in any document sworn by him for litigation with his family. This may prove the central issue for the judicial inquiry.
"There were payments left for a particular source but there is no information in the document that a politician ultimately received these monies. It can't be proved by anybody that they went to a politician. Ben Dunne never said that himself," a source said.
It has emerged that the first document of 20 pages handed over by Mr Dunne to Judge Gerard Buchanan on Monday, identifies 1,450 of the 1,600 payments made by Dunnes Stores in the Price Waterhouse report.
Judge Buchanan, who was given the task of extracting the names of all politicians and public servants from the Price Waterhouse report before the formal tribunal was established this month, met Mr Dunne's legal advisers recently to try to identify the 63 per cent of payments for which the beneficiaries could not be determined.
In his preliminary report on Dunnes Stores payments to politicians on February 4th, the judge found the majority of the payments made from the bank accounts examined by Price Waterhouse were made out to cash or bearer, or were paid to credit card accounts.
Having identified 1,450 of the 1,600 payments, Mr Dunne sought the assistance of some seven accountants, banks and microfilms in a bid to determine the destination of the remaining 150 payments. A number of them turned out to be credit card payments to 30 of the most senior employees of Dunnes Stores.
With a small batch of unidentified payments remaining, Judge Buchanan sought clarification from Mr Dunne that these did not relate to politicians.
A second document presented by Mr Dunne to Judge Buchanan on Wednesday was a sworn declaration that, with the exception of £15,000 to £20,000 to unnamed politicians, the monies were not paid to politicians.
Mr Ben Dunne and Dunnes Stores are currently sifting through the extensive legal paperwork built up for the litigation surrounding Mr Dunne's dismissal from the company. That case was settled out of court. Mr Dunne and the company have been asked by the chairman of the tribunal of inquiry, Mr Justice McCracken, to hand over all of their litigation papers the week after next.
The informed sources told The Irish Times that there is no affidavit in existence stating that Mr Ben Dunne gave £1.1 million to a named politician.
"There are a number of documents, which are not affidavits, and not sworn, where allegations are made but not proven. One cannot assume that they are correct because the allegations are not proven. The documents to prove the allegations are not complete," the sources said.
