NEW EVIDENCE of a series of sterling cash lodgements to Bertie Ahern's building society account in 1994 was given yesterday to the Mahon tribunal.
The evidence, by a former manager of the building society branch concerned, conflicted with testimony given to the tribunal by the Taoiseach last month, when he said the lodgements were salary cheques.
The tribunal has in recent weeks sought a response by way of correspondence from Mr Ahern to the new material but he has not as yet responded. The new information was supplied to Mr Ahern on March 5th last.
The chairman, Judge Alan Mahon, noted that Mr Ahern's counsel did not challenge yesterday's evidence. Colm Ó hOisin SC, for Mr Ahern, said he wanted to reserve his position as he had not been able to consult with his client, who had been out of the State. In February Mr Ahern told the tribunal that a number of uneven figure lodgements to a building society account he opened in the Drumcondra branch of the Irish Permanent Building Society in 1994 arose from his lodging accumulated salary cheques to the account.
However, the manager in the branch at the time, Blair Hughes, told the tribunal yesterday that the documents created at the time of the transactions indicated the lodgements originated from the exchange of sterling immediately beforehand.
The total involved was £15,500 sterling and the branch records indicate the sterling was cash. The bulk of the money was lodged to Mr Ahern's account although some was also lodged to two accounts belonging to his daughters at the same branch.
The records indicate the lodgements were made by Gráinne Carruth, who worked at Mr Ahern's office in St Luke's, Drumcondra, from 1987 to 1999. Mr Hughes said he was aware at the time that Ms Carruth, whom he knew, was making lodgements to "the Ahern accounts" and that the lodgements included sterling. "I just knew from conversations with her that some of the lodgements were in sterling," he said.
Yesterday, Ms Carruth said that any transactions she conducted for Mr Ahern were on his instructions and that if she was given sterling she was given it directly by him. However, she said she had no memory of handling sterling.
When she appeared at the tribunal last year Ms Carruth said she regularly cashed Mr Ahern's salary cheques at AIB and brought the cash back to him, and that she sometimes lodged money to his daughters' accounts in the Irish Permanent. She said she did not lodge cash for Mr Ahern, but yesterday she agreed that the new documentation shows otherwise.
She said she had not known Mr Ahern had an account with the Irish Permanent in Drumcondra until told about it recently by the tribunal. Yet she accepted that the documents showed her lodging large cash figures to the account.
Ms Carruth told Des O'Neill SC, for the tribunal, that if she was being asked if she had ever dealt in sterling, then her answer was no.
Ms Carruth was then taken through lodgement slips to Mr Ahern's and his daughters' accounts on which she had written her name and address, and foreign exchange records that Mr Hughes had said were linked to the lodgements.
When she accepted that she had made a lodgement associated with one of these slips, Mr O'Neill said it followed that someone had given her sterling.
Ms Carruth said: "I have no recall of sterling being in my hands, ever." Mr O'Neill said that in 1994 Ms Carruth was earning £66 per week but was involved in making four-figure cash lodgements.
"How can you forget that you were dealing with these huge sums of money?" Ms Carruth replied, "I have no idea." She agreed with Mr O'Neill who said that if she had been given the sterling sums identified in the bank records, then she got them "directly from Mr Ahern".
Ms Carruth, who at times appeared close to tears, is to resume giving evidence today.
Just before the tribunal adjourned, Judge Mahon said she should look again at the bank documents and speak with her solicitor Hugh Millar, "so that you will be quite clear in the evidence you are giving and the evidence you have given in the past".