Analysis:A draft given to Bertie Ahern was paid for using funds from a Manchester source, writes Colm Keena.
The evidence has now been heard from the two main figures involved in a key element of the first of the "dig-outs" mentioned by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in his RTÉ TV interview last year.
Bank records show that Ahern lodged £22,500 in December 1993 and that £15,000 of that was cash, the rest being a cheque for £2,500 and a draft for £5,000. The draft was made out to Des Richardson.
Richardson has said he was involved in collecting the money, along with the late Gerard Brennan, and that he himself contributed £2,500 by way of a cheque. He said it was a sensitive matter and they decided to only approach friends of Ahern.
One of those approached was Padraic O'Connor, the then managing director of NCB, Richardson said. He said the £5,000 draft was funded by O'Connor.
Richardson said he and Brennan asked people for cash, and that each of those approached was asked for £2,500. He told the tribunal about meeting David McKenna by arrangement and asking him for £2,500, and how they had a second meeting at which McKenna handed over the cash.
A day after that evidence the tribunal asked Richardson why the contribution ascribed to O'Connor came to be £5,000. Richardson then altered his evidence in relation to asking people for £2,500 each. He said he and Brennan were to raise £10,000 each and he decided to ask two people for £5,000 each, rather than four for £2,500 each.
Asked who apart from O'Connor had been asked by him for £5,000, he named McKenna. "He didn't have five at the time . . . He said he would pay it in two instalments." In the event a second instalment was not made by McKenna.
He was asked why his own payment was a cheque and not cash. He said it was probably because he was in a hurry.
O'Connor's evidence was more clear-cut. He said he was not a personal friend of Ahern in the sense used by Richardson. He said he was certain he was never asked for a personal contribution to Ahern's finances. He said Richardson asked for £5,000 towards Ahern's constituency operation. He said he was told the operation cost approximately £25,000 per annum to run, and that Richardson said he was approaching four or five companies.
O'Connor said he was concerned about NCB being involved in such a targeted operation. He said he believed the payment was concealed through the use of a bogus invoice from a company called Euro Workforce Ltd, supplied by Richardson.
Richardson's counsel, Jim O'Callaghan, put it to O'Connor that the reason NCB did not simply write out a cheque to Ahern's constituency cumann was because O'Connor knew the request was for Ahern personally, and he, O'Connor, decided to make the payment with NCB money. O'Connor responded: "That's offensive and it's absolute nonsense."
If the tribunal decides O'Connor's evidence is correct, then it appears a political donation was used for Ahern's personal expenditure. Ahern at the time was minister for finance and treasurer of the Fianna Fáil party.
The tribunal has not established exactly how the Euro Workforce cheque, dated December 15th, 1993, came to pay for the draft handed to Ahern. The draft was purchased on December 22nd, 1993, and the NCB cheque was not cashed until March 1994.
A bank record shows Richardson bought the draft using funds in the account of a company called Roevin Ireland Ltd. Roevin at the time was a former subsidiary of a Manchester-based plc and was not trading. Richardson, Roevin's sole Irish director, said he had the right to the more than £39,000 that was in the account at the time the draft was purchased. The purchase was the first debit to the account in more than a year.
As with so much of Richardson's evidence, what should be a simple matter - the passing on of money from one person to another - is hugely complicated and unclear.