The former Dunnes Stores financial adviser, Mr Noel Fox, yesterday admitted receiving "bearer" cheques from Mr Ben Dunne for expenses which were never billed to the company.
Mr Fox, a chartered accountant and Dunnes Stores trustee, said that once a year he was handed a cheque made out to cash, or bearer, to a sum "usually between £5,000 and £7,000".
But, he said, he never received any of the six bearer cheques, valued at £32,000 in total, which were credited to a Guinness & Mahon bank account from which payments were made to Mr Charles Haughey. This was despite the fact that he filled in part of the six cheques for Mr Dunne.
Last week Mr Dunne gave evidence that Mr Fox was one of the people who received bearer cheques for sums of between £12,000 and £16,000. Asked whether he could have received a cheque for such a sum, Mr Fox said, "No, I am not mistaken. What I have said in my statement is correct."
Mr Fox said he never received a bearer cheque in excess of £10,000. Nor did he ever receive more than one bearer cheque a year. He never wrote bearer cheques or had custody over them for the purpose of passing them on to other people.
However, he confirmed that he completed the writing on the six bearer cheques in question after Mr Dunne had filled in the figures and signed them. This was a "once-off occasion." He said he wished to state categorically that he had no knowledge of how these cheques made their way into the Guinness & Mahon account.
The only bearer cheques Mr Fox received were to pay for expenses incurred "while on business for Dunne Stores". He received one such cheque each year in the period between 1987/88 and 1991. Neither he nor his firm billed Dunnes Stores for those expenses, he said.
