Former Taoiseach, Mr Charles Haughey, is to be called to the Moriarty tribunal soon, to be questioned about more than £8.6 million which the tribunal believes he was given over a 17-year period.
In a lengthy statement yesterday Mr Jerry Healy SC, for the tribunal, read out a list of bank lodgements and expenditure on Mr Haughey's behalf which the tribunal team has identified from January 1979 to December 1996.
"In a recent letter in advance of, and in anticipation of requiring the attendance of Mr Haughey to give evidence - and there is no suggestion that Mr Haughey has indicated that he will not give evidence - the tribunal wrote to Mr Haughey drawing together for his assistance . . . a large amount of information which has already become available."
The details in Mr Healy's list include lodgements to previously undisclosed accounts in National Irish Banks linked to Mr Haughey which totalled £580,774 in the years to December 31st, 1996. The tribunal has yet to get Mr Haughey's permission to examine these accounts.
Mr Healy also revealed that the tribunal has been unable to discover any evidence of a £400,000 sterling loan Mr Haughey took out in 1983 with Guinness Mahon Cayman Trust, later Ansbacher Cayman Ltd, being paid off. Interest of £95,000 sterling accrued before the loan was settled. Mr Haughey has refused to give the tribunal access to his dealings with the Cayman bank.
The tribunal is also examining a number of lodgements to an account in Guinness & Mahon bank which has already been linked to payments to Mr Haughey. Eleven cash lodgements totalling £106,800 were made to the Amiens Securities account in and around the time of the 1987 general election, all in round figures.
A lodgement of £195,000 on February 22nd, 1988, and another of £49,700 two days later, are also being examined. To date no donor has been identified.
Mr Healy said a payment of £260,000 from Princes Investments Ltd, a company associated with property developer Mr John Byrne, was lodged to the Amiens account in July 1987. As the lodgement was made by banker's draft, AIB had to examine every debit of around that amount in the State in that period in its banking system, before it identified the source of the money, Mr Healy said. The payment came from a Princes Holdings account with AIB, Tralee, Co Kerry.
The tribunal has also identified a payment of £50,000 from another company associated with Mr Byrne, Skellig Investments, to the Amiens account in February 1987. Mr Byrne has told the tribunal he has no recollection of writing the cheque.
