New details of the inquiries by the Mahon tribunal were revealed last week by counsel for the Taoiseach, writes Colm Keena.
The submission last week by Conor Maguire, counsel for the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, seeking to prevent his client being publicly examined by the Mahon tribunal, revealed that the tribunal's interest in Mr Ahern went beyond the Quarryvale module.
The tribunal believes that Mr Ahern could be relevant to three further modules it was considering holding, but which it now never will.
In 2004, the Oireachtas told the tribunal to draft a list of matters it would in future inquire into in public. The idea was that no further matters could then be added to the list.
The tribunal drafted a secret list but, crucially, it stated that the matters on the list were issues it might inquire into in the future, rather than issues it would inquire into. For this reason, the Supreme Court ruled that the tribunal had not properly complied with the direction from the Oireachtas, and the tribunal is now barred from inquiring further into the matters on the list, or indeed into any new matters. The list has never been made public.
Last week Mr Maguire revealed that the tribunal had in the past number of days furnished Mr Ahern with an edited version of the list showing those items which it felt might be relevant to him.
The first item on the list is the strangest and most intriguing. It concerns 14 named people, including Mr Ahern, and "all matters involving separately or together, directly or indirectly" these 14 people and "persons, companies, trusts or entities controlled by or operating for any of their benefits, individually or otherwise".
Mr Maguire did not name the other 13 people listed with Mr Ahern. He said that the item was not limited to time or category.
No further details as to what was being referred to were given by Mr Maguire, and so the strange piece of information - the existence of a group of 14 people about whom the tribunal wished to reserve a very wide right to investigate - has been left hanging. How and why the 14 came to be listed, and how they are related to each other, if at all, is left unclear. A spokesman for Mr Ahern yesterday said no comment was available on the matter.
Mr Maguire said that the other items on the edited list included tax designation and "Green Property Group/ rezoning or tax designation". It is not clear whether other matters the tribunal may consider to be relevant to Mr Ahern appear on the edited list but were not mentioned by Mr Maguire.
The tribunal's decision to hold public hearings into Mr Ahern's finances is unusual in that there is no link whatsoever between the transactions being examined and the Quarryvale project, which is the focus of the current module.
The tribunal has said that it decided to hold public inquiries into the transactions because they were so complex. Its reason for initiating the inquiry into Mr Ahern's finances was because developer Tom Gilmartin said that developer Owen O'Callaghan had said he gave money to Mr Ahern, something which Mr O'Callaghan and Mr Ahern have strongly denied. Mr Maguire has described the allegation as "flimsy", and it is hard to argue with that description.
Nevertheless, extensive details concerning Mr Ahern's finances have come into the public domain. Mr Maguire said that Mr Ahern has answers for the questions that have arisen, a point Mr Ahern also made during the recent election campaign.
If Mr Maguire's submission is successful, Mr Ahern will never get the opportunity to illustrate to the tribunal that his financial affairs were as he has claimed, and that any disquiet which has arisen is groundless. Nor will he ever have a final report from the tribunal to support him in his position.
Politically, then, the questions concerning his finances may be left hanging, as may questions concerning the tribunal's list.