The tribunal team was dizzy with documents. Its offices in Dublin Castle were crowded with folder upon folder of bank statements, letters, copies of letters, cheques, covering notes and memoranda but it had not found what it needed to positively link Charles Haughey's finances to the Ansbacher Deposits into which Ben Dunne's £1.3 million had been lodged.
It was June 25th and the tribunal was due to reconvene the following Monday. Top of the agenda would be evidence from Noel Smyth, Dunne's solicitor, about conversations he had had with Haughey concerning the matters the tribunal was investigating. But at this point the tribunal team did not know what Smyth's evidence would be.
It had been to the Cayman Islands, seeking permission to compel witnesses there to give evidence. But the judge had reserved his decision. Since then the team had received masses of documentation as a result of an order of discovery, a legal instruction, served on the banker Padraig Collery.
On June 25th, Collery gave the tribunal copies of hundreds of letters sent to him by Des Traynor, relating to the Ansbacher Deposits. The letters dealt with withdrawals and deposits and contained instructions to Collery. The instructions used a code, with different accounts having different codes. There were also short notes, most referring to a JJS who was to be given the money. No one knew who, or what, JJS was. There was no mention of Haughey.
And then, Eureka!
"What do you make of this?" said one of the team, pointing to a simple, handwritten note at the end of one of hundreds of letters. The handwriting was that of Traynor's secretary, Joan Williams, and the note was at the bottom of a letter concerning the withdrawal of £25,000 sterling from one of the coded accounts - the S9 deutschmark account.
"By hand to CJH, 30th of November 1993", was all it said, but it was enough.
In all the documentation, it was the only reference to CJH. CJH had to be Haughey. A list of accounts coded S1 to S9 in a memorandum the tribunal discovered had the reference HC opposite the S9 account. Could HC be Haughey, Charles? It had to be. The same HC also occurred opposite S8, a sterling account. That had to be another Haughey account. The tribunal had broken the code.
The letters held by the tribunal documented large sums of money coming out of the S8 and S9 accounts over several years. This was, therefore, all Haughey's money. The tribunal already had evidence that Ben Dunne's £1.3 million had been paid into the Ansbacher Deposits, of which the S8 and S9 accounts were part.
Collery was called in for another interview. Confronted with the evidence he admitted that he knew who the beneficial owner of the S8 and S9 accounts was. It was Haughey. The JJS who usually received the money withdrawn from the accounts was an accountant, Jack Stakelum. Stakelum's company handled the Haughey household's living expenses and the money came from the Ansbacher Deposits.
Stakelum was contacted and he met the tribunal the following afternoon in the Four Courts. Stakelum, a close friend of Traynor, told how his company had the job of managing Haughey's bills. The money came from the Ansbacher Deposits. An order of discovery was made. The picture was complete.
That same week a subpoena had been sent to Abbeville, Haughey's home in Kinsealy, north Dublin. The former Taoiseach must have felt the net was closing.
Five months earlier, the three members of the tribunal team had their first meeting in a room in the Four Courts.
John Lawless, a young solicitor recommended by the Chief State Solicitor's office, brought with him the barest of information then available, the sort of material that might have been collected by any junior reporter. He had the relevant Dail debates, a copy of the interim report of Judge Gerard Buchanan (whom the Government appointed to examine Price Waterhouse documents which listed "irregular payments" made by Mr Dunne. Judge Buchanan reported to the Dail Committee on Procedure and Privileges) and the product of a company search on Dunnes Stores. The other lawyers present were barristers Denis McCullough and Anthony Aston.
The tribunal's brief for the three men was to inquire into payments to politicians by Ben Dunne and Dunnes Stores, and any considerations that might have been received in return. The thin file Lawless put together had no mention of Charles Haughey but the allegation against the former Taoiseach was well enough known.
In December, the finance editor of The Irish Times, Cliff Taylor, had revealed that a "prominent Fianna Fail figure" had been given more than £1 million by Dunnes Stores. This was the first publicly stated link to Fianna Fail - and the first hint that Haughey might be the central figure. It is likely the tribunal team knew to whom he was referring.
The team met again the following Saturday in Dublin Castle. Brian McCracken, the High Court judge and sole member of the tribunal, attended this meeting, as did the other member of the legal team, Michael Collins, and registrar Annette O'Connell. Judge Buchanan's offices were also in the Castle. He had a copy of the Price Waterhouse report. The tribunal team did not.
The initial steps were taken, the trawl begun. The tribunal wrote to everyone who had been a TD or senator between January 1st, 1986, and December 31st, 1996, asking if they had received money from Dunne or Dunnes Stores. The letters were sent on February 20th. Advertisements were placed in the national newspapers.
Noel Smyth was contacted. The tribunal was told that Dunne would co-operate fully with it, as he had done with the earlier Buchanan inquiry. A statement was made and the tribunal had something to start work on. In his statement, Dunne outlined when the payments to Haughey were made and what accounts they were paid into. The tribunal team had a money trail they could follow.
Dunne's statement included his assertion that he had handed Haughey three bank drafts together worth £210,000 following a meeting in Kinsealy in 1991. This extraordinary detail was new: up to then the allegation was simply that Haughey had been paid £1.1 million by Dunne. The figure was now £1.3 million. The tribunal was sitting on one of the hottest stories in Irish politics in decades.
In correspondence with the tribunal, Haughey denied he had received £1.3 million. On March 7th, he wrote that "neither I nor any connected person or relative" had received the Dunne payments. To support his assertion, he included a letter he had sent two years earlier to solicitors for Dunnes Stores who were seeking return of the money. In that letter, Haughey rebuffed the company's efforts to retrieve the money. "As no such monies have been paid, no repayment arises," he wrote.
Correspondence passed back and forth between Dublin Castle and Kinsealy. In a letter to the tribunal on April 3rd, Mr Haughey wrote: "A careful perusal of the documents on their own do not corroborate the allegations made against me." What the tribunal needed was documents which constituted proof.
The money trail was followed. Orders of discovery were made and the library of documents in Dublin Castle grew. In March, a trip was made to the Isle of Man to interview bankers. Letters were drafted seeking permission from the High Court in London to hear evidence there. The wording of these letters had to be drafted carefully as the tribunal was aware it would have to seek similar permission from the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands.
It was necessary that the application drafted for the London application was such that it would assist the Cayman one.
The attempt to get evidence on the Cayman Islands was always going to be difficult. The cash-bloated financial sector which exists on the small, marshy tropical islands is based on strict confidentiality laws introduced in the 1970s to reassure depositors their affairs would remain secret.
Charles Quin, an Irishman with a practice in George Town, Grand Cayman, was engaged. So, too, was Antonio Bueno, another Queen's Counsel based in London who took part regularly in cases in the Cayman Islands.
From the start, from reports in The Irish Times and later as a result of Mr Dunne's statement, the tribunal was aware of the involvement of a Cayman banker, John Furze. The money trail led to accounts in Dublin banks held in the name of Cayman banks with which Furze was associated. But there the trail stopped.
The tribunal sat on February 24th to hear applications from parties wishing to be represented legally. There was no approach on behalf of Haughey. On March 5th, the tribunal sat to make orders of discovery. On April 11th, there was a short sitting at which Denis McCullough applied for a further adjournment so the team could continue its investigations. The following week, an order of discovery was made against Haughey. On April 21st, the tribunal had its first substantial public hearing.
At this, McCullough outlined the progress made so far. He gave details of the money trail which had been followed, how the bulk of the £1.3 million went from various banks outside the State to banks in London and from there to an account in the Guinness & Mahon bank in Dublin. The account was in the name of a Cayman bank, Ansbacher Ltd. The £210,000 paid out in the form of three drafts ended up in an Ansbacher account held in the Irish Intercontinental Bank, also in Dublin.
Mr Dunne gave evidence on the Monday and Tuesday. The detail of his testimony was new to the public and made sensational reporting. Especially prominent in the media coverage was the circumstance of Dunne handing the three drafts to Haughey in Kinsealy.
Dunne's first payment to Haughey, the £1.1 million, had been made into bank accounts following a request from Des Traynor, relayed to Dunne via his accountant, Noel Fox. Traynor was acting for Haughey. But the £210,000 came to Haughey by an altogether different route. Haughey had not requested the money, said Dunne. He had handed over the drafts following a chat the two men had had in Kinsealy because, as he was leaving the Haughey mansion, he thought the then-Taoiseach looked a bit down.
"On the way out," said Dunne, "I took the drafts from my pocket and I said, `look, that's something for yourself'."
"Thank you, big fella," said Haughey, according to Dunne.
This sent shock waves through the political establishment. But Haughey had denied receiving the money. The trail left by the £1.3 million led to accounts Traynor controlled but not in any obvious way connected with Haughey. It was simply Dunne's word against that of the former Taoiseach.
Over the next few days, the tribunal heard evidence from others, including the Dunnes accountant, Fox, and Dunne's sister, the chief executive of Dunnes Stores, Margaret Heffernan. The evidence gave a tantalising insight into the business activities of some of the State's most powerful figures but the link with Haughey was still not proven.
Dunne's solicitor gave evidence on the Friday. Replying to Michael Collins, SC for the tribunal, Smyth was outlining matters connected with his handling of Dunne's legal affairs when he mentioned casually communications between himself and Haughey. These contacts had not been mentioned in Smyth's written statement and the tribunal was obviously surprised.
Smyth had discussed with Haughey the payments which the tribunal was investigating. The news was explosive, but Smyth said that, before he revealed the content of his conversations with Haughey, he would like a direction from Mr Justice McCracken. He had met Haughey in relation to the Buchanan inquiry and the tribunal. He had met him three times in Abbeville and twice in a neighbouring property - so as to avoid detection by the media.
Smyth said he had not included these matters in his written statement as Haughey had spoken with him as he would to a solicitor. Haughey had not distinguished between his being a solicitor and his acting as Haughey's own solicitor. (In the latter case, which was not the situation, the conversations would be covered by solicitor-client privilege.) Smyth said he would not divulge the content of the conversations unless directed to do so.
Collins said that because the conversations were held in confidence it had been proper and correct for Smyth to leave the matter out of his statement, but it was his application that he be directed to disclose the content of the conversations.
When Mr Justice McCracken then said he thought it would be wrong to make a decision without allowing Haughey time to make a submission, Smyth made another revelation. He said he had written a statement concerning the conversations and posted it to himself. He had it with him in a sealed envelope.
Mr Justice McCracken ordered that the envelope be sent, unopened, to Abbeville. He adjourned the hearing to Monday morning. The tribunal solicitor, John Lawless, drove off to Kinsealy to deliver the sealed envelope.
The fall-out from that week's revelations continued for some time, but with nothing further emanating from the legal team in Dublin Castle, the story soon ran out of steam. On the Monday after the dramatic delivery of Smyth's envelope, the tribunal was adjourned. This was to allow the tribunal to continue its investigations, but it dovetailed nicely with the political need to have its deliberations out of the public eye for the duration of the general election campaign.
The election took place on June 6th and Fianna Fail won enough seats to form a minority government with the Progressive Democrats, with the support of a few Independents. In all this time, Haughey made no public statement.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the tribunal team remained busy. On May 1st and 8th, Collins heard evidence from bankers in London. The most dramatic was evidence from a Peter George Greenhalgh, of Henry Ansbacher bank. He gave evidence about the operation of the accounts which later came to be known as the Ansbacher Deposits. He outlined the central role played by Des Traynor in managing the accounts.
It was during this evidence that he said: "They held memorandum accounts in Cayman. This is so far as I am aware."
Collins: "I am sorry. I do not understand the expression `memorandum account'."
A memorandum account, Greenhalgh explained, was one which was not on the books of the bank. It is a "shadow" of an account held elsewhere. The tribunal learned that in the case of the Ansbacher Deposits it was memorandum accounts, held in Dublin outside the bank, which contained the key to who owned the money in the deposits.
Later that month, Collins, Lawless, Denis McCullough and Mr Justice McCracken travelled to the Cayman Islands. The tribunal's application to hear evidence there was heard in camera in the small courthouse in George Town. The hearing lasted three days and on May 27th the judge, Mr Justice Patterson, said he was reserving his decision. John Furze had opposed the application.
What happened outside the court process during the team's 10-day visit remains unclear, but it would seem that during this period it became convinced of the existence in Ireland of documentation which might mirror the memorandum accounts it hoped to view in the Cayman Islands.
The events which occurred on the team's return were very much the closing act. Collery complied with the discovery order, the CJH reference was noticed, Collery admitted he handled accounts for Haughey, and Stakelum and another accountant, Paul Carty, were interviewed about their roles in managing Mr Haughey's affairs.
The accountants, Carty, a managing partner in Deloitte and Touche, which is part made up from the old Haughey Boland firm, and Stakelum, of Business Enterprises Ltd, had both done their articles with Haughey Boland. Carty was previously, and Stakelum is currently, involved in managing Haughey's living expenses. The money is supplied, through Collery, from accounts in a Dublin bank.
Collery had had an informal meeting with John Lawless, at Lawless's invitation, near the end of April. Collery's name was mentioned in documentation from Guinness & Mahon bank. There was no further meeting until May 16th, just before the Cayman trip. The order of discovery was made on that date.
Collery sought legal advice on what documents he should discover and what notice he should give to the banks which were the owners of the originals of the memoranda accounts he had. He queried how he might balance banker/customer confidentiality with the tribunal's order. The order was challenged in terms of its breadth. Clarification was sought by way of motion in regard to the tribunal's terms of reference. All of this continued while the tribunal team was in the Cayman Islands and presumably the team was kept informed of progress at all times.
Collery had been straining to retain client confidentiality, but after being confronted with the note referring to CJH he admitted he had been handling funds for Haughey and explained about the management of his expenses.
When the tribunal reconvened on June 30th, Denis McCullough was able to disclose the existence of the Ansbacher Deposits and coded memorandum accounts, and the fact that some of these accounts held funds belonging to Haughey. He disclosed that money from the deposits paid for Haughey's expensive lifestyle.
He further disclosed that the team had proof that some of the money from Mr Dunne had been used to pay off a loan Mr Haughey had with the Agricultural Credit Corporation bank. It was overwhelming evidence. The former Taoiseach had received the £1.3 million given him by Ben Dunne, McCullough declared.
Haughey's counsel, Eoin McGonigal, announced that Haughey accepted, "as a matter of probability", that he had indeed received the £1.3 million. Haughey denied, through McGonigal, that he had been personally aware he had got the money, but the limited admission was in itself sensational. McGonigal added that Haughey would deny ever receiving the three bank drafts.
Druing the following days, the tribunal heard evidence relating to the former Fine Gael minister, Michael Lowry, and other matters, as well as from Stakelum, Carty and Collery.
On July 7th, Mr Justice McCracken ruled that Smyth should disclose the content of his conversations with Haughey. Haughey had that morning supplied a seven-page statement to the tribunal. There then ensued, behind the scenes, events which led to the final disgrace of the former Taoiseach.
In his statement, Haughey contested details of Smyth's version of the conversations between the two men. There was also a disparity over the date of the final meeting. The tribunal team was in contact with both sides. It emerged that Smyth could show, using telephone logs of incoming calls kept in his office, that Mr Haughey was in contact with him up to the date outlined in his statement.
It all led to another Eureka! for the tribunal team. An order of discovery was made against Smyth for his telephone logs. When they were examined the tribunal team found a second cluster of calls from Haughey in 1994. When asked about these, Smyth revealed he had first discussed the Dunne payments with Haughey in 1994. A second series of conversations had occurred in 1997. The first conversations were in the context of a legal dispute within the Dunne family, during which the payments were to feature.
This was explosive new evidence. Smyth made a further statement for the tribunal covering these events. The net effect was that Haughey could no longer maintain that he had not been aware of the payments. He filed a new statement on Wednesday, saying he had known of the payments since 1993. (Des Traynor, he said, had told him in a telephone conversation which took place after a visit by Margaret Heffernan to Kinsealy, seeking the return of the £1.3 million.)
Furthermore, Haughey said he now accepted he had received the three bank drafts in 1991, when Taoiseach. He had no recollection of the payment but he accepted Ben Dunne's version of events.
This revealed that the former Taoiseach had lied persistently to the tribunal, causing the State, the taxpayers, considerable expense and bringing disgrace upon himself. The acceptance that he had received the £210,00 meant he was admitting accepting a large personal donation from a businessman while holding the most powerful office in the State. But the substantial work had already been done, the link proven between Dunne's payments and their receipt by Haughey.
It only remained for Haughey to appear before the tribunal, which he did on July 15th. He added to his disgrace with the claim that he had not paid any attention to his financial affairs since the 1960s, leaving them in the hands of his associate and friend, Des Traynor, so that he, Mr Haughey, could get on with affairs of State.
On his way out of Dublin Castle, he paused to wave to the waiting crowd. He was booed.