Taoiseach Bertie Ahern yesterday agreed at the Mahon tribunal that AIB bank records must be incorrect if his account of a lodgement he made in December 1994 is correct.
Mr Ahern told the tribunal that a £28,772.90 lodgement made in December 1994 was made up mostly of sterling cash but the bank's records show that only £1,921.55 worth of sterling was lodged on the day in question.
Mr Ahern yesterday completed his evidence to this phase of the tribunal's inquiries into his personal finances, but tomorrow the Dáil resumes after the summer recess and Opposition leaders have signalled their intention to press him on his testimony.
Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore said political accountability could not await the publication of the tribunal report. "Quite simply I do not find the Taoiseach's convoluted accounts of his financial dealings to be credible," he said.
Fine Gael has left open the possibility that it will put down a motion of no confidence in the Taoiseach. "We are reviewing the detail of Mr Ahern's sworn evidence, and when we have completed our review we will form a political view on Mr Ahern's explanations for large cash lodgements into his accounts. Fine Gael will then decide how Mr Ahern can be held accountable to the Dáil. All options will be considered, including a motion of no confidence," a party spokesman said.
Mr Ahern denied again yesterday that he had been involved in any dollar transactions.
The tribunal has been told by Mr Ahern that the December 1994 lodgement was a sum of Irish and sterling cash, the vast bulk of it sterling, that had been given to him by Manchester-based businessman Michael Wall two days earlier.
Tribunal counsel Des O'Neill SC put it to the Taoiseach that the bank's records show that sterling worth only £1,921.55 was brought into the bank branch on the day Mr Ahern says his then partner, Celia Larkin, lodged up to £28,000 sterling. Mr O'Neill said: "It cannot be the case that Ms Larkin changed a sterling equivalent of £28,772.90 on that day, if that bank record is accurate, isn't that correct?"
Mr Ahern: "If the bank record is accurate."
Mr O'Neill drew Mr Ahern's attention to a tribunal calculation showing that the amount lodged converted into exactly $45,000 when the better of the two published dollar exchange rates being operated by the branch on that day was applied.
Responding to his counsel, Conor Maguire SC, Mr Ahern said the suggestion he might have been involved in a dollar transaction was first made to him in private by the tribunal a few weeks before the general election campaign. It came "as a total shock because as I said then, I never dealt in dollars, I didn't exchange any dollars, I received no dollars".
Mr Ahern was also questioned yesterday about his evidence that he purchased £30,000 sterling cash with part of a £50,000 withdrawal he made from AIB O'Connell St, in January 1995. Mr O'Neill said there was no record in AIB O'Connell St, or in a bank in Drumcondra that Mr Ahern also sometimes used, of such a purchase of sterling.
Mr Ahern, who initially had said he believed he had purchased the sterling in O'Connell St, said he now believed he must have asked somebody to change the money for him. He had checked with some people whom he might have asked "and the answer is none of them did".
