It is "quite unacceptable" that Mr Charles Haughey or any member of the Oireachtas should receive personal gifts, such as the Dunne payments received by Mr Haughey, Mr Justice McCracken said in his report. It is even more unacceptable that Mr Haughey's "whole lifestyle should be dependent upon such gifts, as would appear to be the case".
"If such gifts were to be permissible, the potential for bribery and corruption would be enormous. If politicians are to give an effective service to all their constituents, or to all the citizens of the State, they must not be under a financial obligation to some constituents or some citizens only.
"By allowing himself to be put in a position of dependency, Mr Charles Haughey failed in his obligations to his constituents and to the citizens of this State, and indeed devalued some of the undoubtedly valuable work which he did when in office."
The report finds that "exhaustive inquiries" made throughout the public service failed to uncover instances of Mr Haughey exercising his influence for the benefit of Mr Dunne, the Dunne family or Dunnes Stores apart from a request that the chairman of the Revenue Commissioners meet Mr Dunne.
In relation to that meeting, Mr Justice McCracken said: "The tribunal is satisfied that there was no wrongful use of his position by Mr Haughey."
It appeared that Mr Dunne was "an impetuously generous person". However, the arrangements made for some of the payments to Mr Haughey were elaborate and were "certainly not a spontaneous act".
Meetings between Mr Dunne and Mr Haughey became more frequent after the first payment, "although the payment and receipt of monies remained an unspoken bond between them".
He had no doubt as to the truth of Mr Dunne's evidence that he thought it wrong that a Taoiseach should be facing financial problems but "it is hardly sufficient in itself to explain the generosity shown by Mr Ben Dunne".
"It is no part of the function of the tribunal to conduct a psychological study of Mr Ben Dunne. However, it does appear to the tribunal that a possible motive for the actions of Mr Ben Dunne, in the absence of any ulterior political motive, was simply to buy the friendship, or at least the acquaintance, of a person in a very powerful political position.
"Mr Ben Dunne appears to have had many friends in the business community, but few, if any, in the political community."
He said most of the payments made by Mr Dunne came from accounts which he solely controlled. He accepts that, for the most part, the other directors of Dunnes Stores were unaware of the payments "and, indeed, in many cases unaware of the existence of the accounts".
However the board of the Dunnes Holding Company chose to entrust the financial affairs of the group to Mr Dunne and "to give him wide and unsupervised powers". "As a matter of general principle the tribunal feels that it must state that prima facie the board of directors of a company is responsible for the actions of the person they choose as managing director, as least where he has ostensible authority to act on behalf of the company. At the very least, the company must bear some blame for not having put any proper supervisory procedure in place."
He outlined the five separate payments amounting to £1.3 million, given to Mr Haughey between November 1987, and November 1991.
The initial request was made over the telephone by the late Mr Des Traynor to Mr Noel Fox, an accountant and close adviser to the Dunnes group, some time in late 1987. Mr Traynor said he was dealing with a significant financial problem that related to the then Taoiseach, Mr Haughey.
Mr Traynor said he was hoping to put together a consortium of business people who would together contribute towards solving Mr Haughey's problem. Mr Dunne, through Mr Fox, said he would deal with the problem himself in the interests of confidentiality.
In late November, 1987, £182,630 sterling was paid. In August 1988, £471,000 sterling was paid. In late April, 1989, £150,000 sterling was paid, and in February, 1990, £200,000 sterling was paid. All four payments followed requests made and instructions given by Mr Traynor to Mr Fox.
The final payment, of three bank drafts worth £210,000 sterling, was handed to Mr Haughey personally by Mr Dunne following a social visit by Mr Dunne to Kinsealy. "Mr Charles Haughey probably sent the three bank drafts to Mr Desmond Traynor."
The drafts were sent by Mr Traynor's secretary for lodgement in a Dublin bank in an account in the name of the Ansbacher bank in the Cayman Islands. The earlier payments had been lodged to similar accounts.
On the first payment of £182,630 sterling in late November 1987, £105,000 of this was used to pay off a loan Mr Haughey had with ACC Bank. Of the balance, £59,000 was withdrawn by way of two cash withdrawals on December 22nd 1987.
The balance of the £182,630 sterling was transferred to a client account of the Haughey Boland company. This account was one used by the company to make payments to or on behalf of Mr Haughey.
The other three payments made according to instructions from Mr Traynor ended up in the Ansbacher Deposits. Mr Justice McCracken said "presumably" the monies were then credited to the memorandum accounts linked to Mr Haughey.
From the records kept by Haughey Boland, the tribunal established payments made on behalf of Mr Haughey between August 1st, 1988, to January 31st, 1991. They were: August 1st, 1988, to December 31st, 1988 - £103,850; January 1st, 1989, to December 31st, 1989 - £325,000; January 1st, 1990, to December 31st, 1990 - £264,000; January 1st, 1991, to January 31st 1991 - £16,000. The figures come to a total of £708,850.
Mr Justice McCracken said there were some missing links in the path followed by the Dunne payments, in particular on the regulating of accounts in Ansbacher Cayman Ltd, the machinery for debiting and crediting those accounts, "and the knowledge of Mr Charles Haughey in relation thereto".
The tribunal believed that the only way these matters would be determined would be to gain information and documentation which was in the possession of either Ansbacher Cayman Ltd or the representatives of its former managing director, the late Mr John Furze.
