Savings and loans:The details of his separation from his wife were not "any of your damn business", Taoiseach Bertie Ahern told tribunal counsel Des O'Neill SC.
The angry comment was made just before lunchtime as Mr O'Neill was questioning Mr Ahern about his taking out a £19,115 loan from AIB bank, O'Connell Street, Dublin, on December 23rd, 1993.
Mr O'Neill questioned Mr Ahern as to why he took out the loan, which was used to settle a number of bills arising from his separation agreement, when Mr Ahern had told the tribunal he had at the time about £54,000 in cash savings.
Mr Ahern said he had as part of his separation agreement, in November 1993, agreed to put £20,000 towards his daughters' education. "So I had £30,000. If I had paid off that . . . then I only had £10,000. So all my savings, having been saving for seven years, £10,000. So I decided not to do that. I decided to take out a bank loan." Mr Ahern said he was conscious at the time that he would at some stage have to buy a house for himself, so he opted to go for a loan.
Mr O'Neill said the £20,000 towards his daughters' education had not been banked by Mr Ahern until August 1994, by which time Mr Ahern had accumulated a further £20,000 in savings in a new building society account he had opened.
He also said the actual expenditures on his daughters' education, had not begun until "five or six years" after the finalisation of the separation agreement.
Mr Ahern said that in late 1993 he entered into a commitment in relation to the £20,000, and for the reasons given he took out the loan. "That's what I did and I don't think I did anything wrong."
The £20,000 wasn't available to him because he'd made a commitment to his daughters. "I'd saved it since 1987, through the whole period of my separation, which I don't think is any of your damned business. I saved it."
Mr O'Neill had earlier displayed a bank document showing that on the day the loan was taken out, three payments were made.
Mr Ahern said a payment of £1,302 was to pay off his wife's car loan. He said a payment of £12,813 was to pay off his own legal fees, and a payment of £5,000 was his contribution towards his wife's counsel's fees. Mr O'Neill said Mr Ahern had accumulated up to £54,000 in cash savings in the period 1987 to 1993, when interest rates had been high, up to 19.5 per cent at their peak for overnight deposits.
Mr Ahern agreed his keeping the money in cash meant he had to forgo this interest. He said he gave no thought to the matter, and had been a very busy government minister.
Mr O'Neill said Mr Ahern's banking history subsequent to his opening personal bank accounts in the wake of his separation agreement, showed him transferring money between accounts and availing of special interest savings accounts.
Mr Ahern said he kept no record of his savings during the period. Chairman Judge Alan Mahon asked did he not think he should keep such records given that he would ultimately have to account for such matters during his separation proceedings.
Mr Ahern said he "supplied all the records I had to supply, including what money I had", as part of his separation agreement.
Mr O'Neill said witnesses called from Mr Ahern's department and from St Luke's had been unable to confirm that he had, respectively, £20,000 and £30,000 approximately, in safes there, in cash.
Mr Ahern said: "They wouldn't have known the amounts."
He said the amount saved was a relatively small amount in the context of his overall earnings during the period, which included income from various roles including TD, lord mayor, councillor, and minister. He agreed to give £20,000 to his daughters, leaving £30,000.
"When you work your butt off and at the end of seven or eight years you end up with £30,000 . . . Money's not important to me . . . It's very little." When Mr O'Neill said it was illustrative to consider the income of a minister for finance in 1993 in terms of what such a minister was paid today, Mr Ahern said: "I'll ring Brian Cowen and ask him what the multiplier is."
He said he didn't know what a minister for finance was paid now. "I hardly know what my own salary is." Mr Ahern said his cash savings were made up of notes received when his pay cheques were cashed over the years. He'd never exchanged them for larger notes, nor could he recall going to a bank to change the notes after the format of the Irish pound changed, to a newer, smaller note, during the period concerned. "I could have done it," he said.
