Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has described as "unbelievable" a hypothesis by the Mahon tribunal that he entered a "back-to-back" loan arrangement at AIB bank in December 1993.
Mr Ahern said he could not believe a theory put forward by tribunal counsel Des O'Neill that he took out a loan of just over £19,000 based on an agreement to lodge a similar amount of money, plus interest, and that he would not pay a penny back on the amount for 18 months.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern
Three drafts totalling just over £19,000 were issued to Mr Ahern on December 23rd to cover expenses connected with his separation agreement.
Mr Ahern signed a declaration form to open a special savings account (SSA) with AIB in the same month. The date on the form in the possession of the tribunal is December 23rd.
However, tribunal counsel said today the document had been sent for expert forensic analysis and the opinion was that there was a "strong" possibility that the original date on the form was December 14th and that it had been changed to read December 23rd.
Mr Ahern said he was not in the bank on December 14th and that he remembered going in on December 23rd because it was the only time he had met the bank manager in that O'Connell Street branch of AIB. He had been doing his Christmas shopping on the day, he said.
Mr Ahern received the first so-called dig-out, a sum of £22,500, from friends shortly after Christmas 1993.
Mr O'Neill put it to the Taoiseach that if the SSA declaration was completed on December 14th 1993, with the intention that he was going to lodge about £22,500 in savings, it would have been 13 days before he received such a sum in St Luke's "as a surprise".
Mr O'Neill suggested a "scenario" whereby Mr Ahern might have gone to the bank on December 14th "with the intention of borrowing money" from them.
Tribunal counsel puts a "scenario" to the Taoiseach
"The bank indicates that they're willing to lend you the money but on terms. Those terms being that there will be a back-to-back arrangement whereby you will put in a deposit which represents the same amount of money which is going to be lent to you and also the interest that would accrue on that sum over the next 18 months," Mr O'Neill said. At then rates of interest, this amount would be approximately £22,000.
"That they are prepared to give you a loan facility on that basis and that happens on 14th. You do not have the money on the 14th but you set about acquiring that money between the 14th and the 23rd. On the 23rd, you return with the money, £15,000 in cash," Mr O'Neill suggested.
"A draft dated December 22nd, drawn upon the bank in Montrose, a cheque dated December 22nd written by Willdover, so you now have £15,000 in cash and a total of £22,000. On that basis [the SSA application] document is amended by the substitution of £23,414. The process of setting up the loan account, Special Savings Account, is progressed and the loan is also in progress."
By December 30th, all the components of the loan and the deposit had been completed, Mr O'Neill suggested.
Mr Ahern responded: "It's unbelievable Mr O'Neill. It is unbelievable. And I really, really don't believe...that you or anybody else would put that together other than really trying to set me up and stitch me up. That is just unbelievable. Unbelievable!
"I didn't know what you were coming at. I didn't know. But to think that, you know, that AIB would get into a conspiracy with me and to put such a convoluted set of circumstances."
"Listen, all that happened Mr O'Neill, is that I was asked on the 21st or 22nd of December 1993 to organise [to pay] a bill on the car loan and I went in and got a loan to do that and the other two legal bills that I had to do. I got a loan to do that. When I was in there I met [the manager] Mr Burns and told him that I had other money that I'd open up the accounts [with], which I did," Mr Ahern added.
Counsel for Mr Ahern, Conor Maguire objected to the line of questioning and the manner of its introduction. He said Mr O'Neill had put forward "a hypothesis that is not rooted in the evidence". He said that to "all reasonable observers, it would appear that this is an allegation that's being made to the witness".
Mr O'Neill said it was his function to introduce all of the facts and that he was not commenting on the legitimacy or the illegitimacy "of any such scenario" and that the tribunal will "consider his responses and reach its determination".
Tribunal chairman Judge Alan Mahon said Mr Ahern was entitled to be put in a position where he could "knock on the head" what was being put to him.
This was not being put to him as "the most likely story or understanding to emerge from the evidence", Mr Mahon said.
He said the tribunal had to investigate the "possibility", which was not a "hypothesis", that Mr Ahern was, in fact, aware on December 23rd, 1993, of the money that was going to be given to him by friends some days later.
Mr Ahern told the tribunal that he in fact intended to put some of his savings, which he had in his safe in Drumcondra, into the special savings account he opened that month.
He later put £28,000 of the £30,000 he had in his safe into the SSA on top of the £22,000 with which the special savings account was opened.
In exchanges shortly before the tribunal finished for the evening, Mr Ahern again said he found it hard to believe that what was being put to him had anything to do with the "central allegation" that he was given money by developer Owen O'Callaghan.
Mr Mahon again pointed out that Mr O'Callaghan had denied ever giving Mr Ahern money, that he had denied saying he had given him money and that Mr Ahern himself denied ever receiving money from Mr O'Callaghan.