Beleaguered Bertie recites his sorrowful mysteries
BERTIE Ahern must be a 'Man of Constant Sorrow', given the way the most unusual of financial transactions always arise in tearjerker circumstances.
We've had the marital separation, its mention deplored after being dragged in by Bertie, usually in the context of monster lodgements, many involving foreign exchange (and generally in cash) that happened in 1993, 1994 and 1995 -- while he separated at the beginning of 1987.
We've had the children pulled in, again by him, this time with a teary television eye and the hint of a quavery voice, mentioned to Bryan Dobson "for completeness."
He's regretted that his friends are in the spotlight and wouldn't have taken the money if he'd known they were going to be asked to regale the nation with fantastic stories from the witness box.
Embarassed for them now, but not embarrassed by the fact that he humbly took these dig-outs as debt-of-honour loans when he had some £95,000 spilling out of the broom closet behind him.
He's wounded that his solicitor's death has been commented on. That he's had to ask constituency officers about tribunal requests while they lay in hospital. That his deceased parents have to be cited, even as Mr Ahern names them as the source and explanation of £7,000 and £5,000 lodgements.
The day before yesterday, in the context of a strange building society account -- the most mysterious so far, and non-disclosed -- a puzzling £30,000 withdrawal was explained as a humanitarian gesture to help three "aged" and "frightened" old ladies.
Yesterday, it emerged the money effectively went to help Celia Ahern buy a house. She bought it for £40,100, a pittance even in 1993. Celia is now the registered owner, three-quarters of the purchase price provided from an account into which Bertie Ahern paid political donations.
These are the facts, stripped down, and leaving the aged and frightened ladies out of it. Nobody is now going to blow their house down, but at the end of all the huff and puff it is Celia who is sitting pretty.
Bertie had constantly referred to this source account as effectively a St Luke's account, administered for Dublin Central FF, even though it was a personal savings account in the name of his boyhood friend, Tim Collins. The name on it was simply "BT".
Bertie and Tim? Mr Ahern says the initials stand for "building trust," which sounds more like a Northern Ireland peace initiative than a maintenance and repair fund for his constituency office. No mention of St Luke's in the account name. No mention of Fianna Fail.
No paperwork on the account to go to constituency officers, but all to be retained in the branch, according to underlying documentation.
This later changed -- only for statements to be sent to Tim Collins' address in Biscayne, Malahide. And here's the odd thing -- Tim Collins was never an officer of the Dublin Central constituency organisation.
He was a member of Fianna Fail, Mr Ahern said in evidence, but may never have signed up to the Taoiseach's O'Donovan Rossa cumann, which today has only 20-25 members. St Luke's already had its own accounts, and is separately a building held in trust for Fianna Fail, administered by a House Committee.
Mr Ahern wants the tribunal to believe that the BT account was always a St Luke's account. That when Celia Ahern wanted money to buy a house where her elderly aunts were living, the House Committee met and decided to give it to her.
The House Committee in 1993 did include Tim Collins, as well as Joe Burke, chairman of the Dublin Port company, who was separately an officer of the cumann. The three other members -- Paddy 'the butcher' Reilly, Jimmy Keane and Gerry Brennan -- are now dead.
These five supposedly decided that it would be right to raid the BT account for £30,000, which they sent out on behalf of Celia. Another dig-out. Gerry Brennan, Bertie's solicitor, who been giving legal advice to the committee, also acted for Celia, the person borrowing from the claimed trust. Conflict of interest?
When the house was bought, there was no charge (or legal lien) on the title deeds protecting the interests of the Fianna Fail organisation. Instead, everyone (Celia especially) seems to have treated the matter as one of these infamous debt-of-honour 'loans' that you can get in Fianna Fail, the friends-first bank, no matter who provided the money in the first place.
Here's another whopper we are asked to swallow: that Bertie didn't know about any of this until it was all over. That while Celia gave evidence about sharing all aspects of existence with the man who was, in her words, her "life partner," she didn't breathe a word. Even though Bertie was Minister for Finance at the time, and could have handed her the whole lot (a couple of times over!) from his personal stash of cash, sorry, savings.
Then there's the 'conspiracy-theory' interpretation: That he DID give her a personal dig-out, because the BT account was a honey-pot ... he wasn't so mean that FF had to do it for him. Just as he wasn't so mean to accept debt-of-honour loans from poor pals when richer than any of them -- because those monies actually came from elsewhere.
Tsk, tsk. Some people will think anything. Have they no heart?
