The American lawyer whose wife obtained an Irish passport in 1994 in return for investments made in Irish companies said yesterday that he had not sought repayment of a £10,500 interest-free loan he made to Fianna Fail.
Mr Jerry Lindzon (71) said he was aware of the controversy which had arisen over a loan made from a joint account he held in ICC Bank to Fianna Fail in July, 1993. He was speaking from Nassau in the Bahamas.
Asked why he had not sought repayment of the loan, he said he had been moving around a lot and did not have his records with him. He did not say if he intended to seek repayment.
He said that there was no "dirt" in relation to the £10,524.59 which was transferred to a Fianna Fail fundraising account on the authorisation of the other account-holder, Mr Brian O'Carroll, a Roscommon-based architect.
Mr Lindzon said that he had an explanation for making the interest-free loan to Fianna Fail but was not prepared to make any comment about it.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, told the Dail on Thursday that the account had not been an investment one, the loan had not been repaid and no request had been made to repay it.
Mr Lindzon said he was "perfectly comfortable" with his position. "I think you are going down a blind alley . . . There is really nothing to it and the official response is there is no comment."
A registered member of the Republican Party in the US, Mr Lindzon has offices in Florida, Mexico and Spain. Based in Coconut Grove, Florida, he is an art collector and property investor.
A Department of Justice source said yesterday that the Lindzon passport application had been delayed because of the controversy surrounding the investment of passport funds in Mr Albert Reynolds's family firm, C & D Petfoods. Mr Lindzon's wife, Elena, was issued with a passport on November 2nd, 1994.
As well as the joint deposit account set up with Mr O'Carroll, Mr Lindzon had, with his wife, two investment accounts in ICC Bank. According to Mr Ahern, the funds in these were used to make investments in Penncastle, a ceramics company in Co Cork.