Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has defended making contact with a senior AIB official who was inquiring into his finances for the Mahon tribunal, write Colm Keena, public affairs correspondent, and Mark Hennessy, political correspondent.
It emerged at the tribunal yesterday that Mr Ahern contacted Jim McNamara, who had been assigned by the bank to gather information for the tribunal.
Mr McNamara, an official with AIB at the bank's branch on O'Connell Street, Dublin, told the tribunal that he was contacted by Mr Ahern's office some time earlier this year and queried as to what evidence or documentation the bank had unearthed in relation to three lodgments being investigated by the tribunal and whether they had been preceded by foreign exchange transactions.
Mr McNamara subsequently spoke directly with Mr Ahern, he said.
Fine Gael has described as "bizarre" the Taoiseach's contact with the AIB official.
The party's frontbench spokesman, Fergus O'Dowd, said the contact with a potential witness was remarkable in the context of Mr Ahern's consistent claims to have fully co-operated with the tribunal.
"In light of these claims, it is remarkable that such an inquiry was made by the Taoiseach in recent months," he added.
Mr O'Dowd questioned whether it was not "peculiar in the extreme" that the Taoiseach, and not his legal team, made contact with the bank.
Last night, a spokesman for Mr Ahern told The Irish Timesthat Mr Ahern had been "perfectly entitled" to speak to a bank official probing his financial affairs before the official gave evidence to the tribunal.
Responding to points made yesterday, the spokesman said it was "extraordinary" that Mr Ahern should be criticised for getting information from his own bank about his finances.
As a customer of the bank, the Taoiseach was entitled to seek documents from the bank to assist him in preparing his responses to ongoing queries from the tribunal.
"The lodgemnts that the tribunal have sought details on took place approximately 12 to 13 years ago. The Taoiseach can't be expected to have access to all the records and details pertaining to transactions from the period at such a remove of time."
The tribunal heard yesterday that at the time contact was made by Mr Ahern between January and April of this year, Mr McNamara had just begun trying to establish whether the bank's files indicated whether the three transactions had been preceded by foreign exchange transactions.
Yesterday he agreed with Des O'Neill SC, for the tribunal, that it appeared that at the time he spoke with Mr Ahern, Mr Ahern knew the three transactions had been preceded by foreign exchange transactions.
Mr Ahern did not tell Mr McNamara this, and Mr McNamara did not ask Mr Ahern whether it was the case.
At the time of the contact between the bank official and the Taoiseach, neither the bank nor the tribunal had established that the lodgments had been preceded by foreign exchange transactions.
The involvement of foreign currency has since been confirmed to the tribunal by Mr Ahern during a private interview in April.
Asked about his conversation with Mr Ahern, Mr McNamara said Mr Ahern had wanted to know what information the bank had gathered for the tribunal "so that when he would have to answer any questions ... he would be aware of the same information that we had submitted to the tribunal".