Bertie's tornado deposits this Dorothy far, far from Kansas
Arriving at the Mahon Tribunal yesterday to hear the evidence of Bertie Ahern's former aide Grainne Carruth: (l to r) Judge AlanMahon, Judge Mary Faherty, and Judge Gerald Keys. TOM BURKE
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About an hour into her second day of giving evidence to the Mahon Tribunal, Grainne Carruth dissolved into tears.
"I just want to go home," she sobbed, like a latter-day Dorothy from the 'Wizard of Oz' yearning for the peace of Kansas.
But there was no way out for Bertie's former secretary. No pair of red shoes to click together, no good fairy Glinda to magic away evidence of sterling transactions into Bertie's account and no Toto by her side.
Instead, there were relentlessly forensic questions from the tribunal's senior counsel Des O'Neill -- the same questions she had mostly failed to answer the day before, prompting Judge Alan Mahon to suggest that she should reflect on her evidence overnight.
But before the questions started, Grainne's solicitor Hugh Millar wished to read a statement from his client. But Judge Mahon was having none of it. "Having considered the evidence overnight, do you want to alter it, or change it, or qualify it, or add to it an any way?" he asked.
"No judge," she replied.
And so the fencing match began again, with Des O'Neill thrusting question after question at her about previous statements she had made that the only transactions she had been involved in for Bertie were cashing his pay cheques.
"Those answers are untrue, isn't that correct?" said Des.
"That was my belief at the time," Grainne retorted.
But Des came back again: "What you said was untrue, isn't that so?"
She could parry the questions no longer.
"Yes," admitted Grainne.
"On the basis that the documentation furnished to you by the tribunal leads to the inevitable and overwhelming conclusion that you were dealing with sterling?" he asked.
"I have no memory of sterling but, with the papers that have come before me, it equates that sterling transactions did happen," she conceded. But that was as far as she would go.
"Ms Carruth," interjected Judge Mahon, "has your solicitor not explained to you what those consequences might be? Would you like an opportunity to talk to your solicitor?"
Grainne shook her head.
But that was wishful thinking. Instead, she listened as Des O'Neill enumerated the consequences for anyone found to have given false information.
Still she would not admit to holding a British pound note in her hand. When once again asked if she had handled sterling as part of lodgments into bank accounts on behalf of her employer, she still couldn't remember doing so.
"I don't recall them, but I have to state that they've been done and they were in sterling and that's the way it is," she said.
Nor could she remember much about a meeting with Bertie's solicitor, Liam Guidera, which took place in St Luke's during 2006. She couldn't offer any explanation as to why Liam Guidera was no longer representing her in court.
"I don't know why I didn't go with Mr Guidera. I just wanted everything away from my door".
She could, however, remember what she did with the receipts after she had completed the bank transactions. "I always gave everything back to Bertie. If it wasn't personally, it was left in his drawer."
As such a good employee, why didn't she contact her old boss to ask him about the sterling transactions when she first saw the tribunal's documentation earlier this month?
Grainne crumbled. Shoulders slumped and head bowed, the tears began. "Because I'm hurt. And I'm upset," she sobbed.
"What's upsetting you about your evidence?" asked Des.
"Because it's taking me from my family. I just want to go home," she repeated.
After a short break, she was more composed. As Des O'Neill took her through a litany of transactions, asking her each time to confirm that she had "forgotten" conducting each one of them, she replied "yes".
Then, when quizzed by Judge Mary Faherty about how she could forget lodging such large sums of money into Bertie's account, when she could clearly remember lodging money into his two daughter's accounts on the same days, she insisted, "I always remembered just the girls".
Finally, Judge Gerald Keys tried his luck. He asked her if she took the account numbers to the bank with her. "Bertie would have given me their passbooks'', she replied.
"So you would have had three passbooks then?" he craftily inquired.
But Grainne didn't hesitate. "I remember just two," she replied, as a ripple of disbelieving laughter rolled through the public gallery.
And then it was over. She stepped down from the stand and back into her private life. She had more or less stuck to her story and, if her former boss gets caught up in a coming tornado, she had done her best to minimise any damage. But Grainne Carruth knows one thing for sure -- this tribunal is a serious business, and she's not in Kansas any more.
