The £30,000 question
Related Articles
The former partner of Bertie Ahern admitted for the first time that she was
in the Taoiseach's office in St Luke's when the bundles of cash were on his
desk.
But a feisty Ms Larkin refused to concede yesterday that she
had misled the tribunal in its probe into Mr Ahern's finances.
She
said she "not very good with dates" as she associated "things
with events".
She was also accused of telling "nonsense"
to the tribunal.
Ms Larkin said she had given her 'best
recollection' of the events surrounding the purchase of 44 Beresford Avenue,
the house now owned by Bertie Ahern. The house was purchased by
Manchester-based businessman Michael Wall in 1995.
And she denied
that she had changed her version of events relating to sums of money lodged
in bank accounts in her name -- money which had been given to Mr Ahern by Mr
Wall for the refurbishment of the Drumcondra property.
Asked by
tribunal judge Gerard Keys if a conversation with Mr Ahern had helped jog
her memory of events, she said he had only given her the date of the
transaction and a review of bank statements, and the fact that she 'thought'
about the event had led to her evidence being 'clarified'.
Ms
Larkin, who was Mr Ahern's girlfriend from the late 1980s, originally told
the tribunal at an interview in June 2006 that £28,772.90 was lodged to an
account in her name on December 5, 1994 by Mr Wall. But it has since emerged
that Ms Larkin opened an account at the AIB branch at 37/38 O'Connell Street
on the day the lodgment was made, and lodged the money herself.
The
money was taken to Dublin in a briefcase by Mr Wall and given to Mr Ahern in
his constituency offices.
Counsel for the tribunal, Henry Murphy
SC, said the inquiry had 'four different accounts' of how the money was
lodged, three of which came from Ms Larkin and one from Mr Wall.
It
was 'no great mystery' as to how the money entered the account, he
suggested, to which Ms Larkin said 'yes'.
On Tuesday, Mr Wall told
the tribunal he gave a briefcase full of cash to Mr Ahern in his
constituency office in Drumcondra the previous Saturday and assumed it was
lodged to a bank account.
Ms Larkin said she lodged the money to the account herself on Monday,
December 5, 1994.
She had asked Gerry Brennan, solicitor for Mr
Wall and Mr Ahern, at a social gathering two days earlier and on the day the
Wall cash was received, what was the best way to deal with it and he
suggested that she open a new account for this money, in order to keep it
separate from other funds.
She was not told by Michael Wall or
Gerry Brennan to lodge the money, but by Mr Ahern himself because he was
going to 'Brussels or Strasbourg' and could not deal with the matter.
She
had previously said that Mr Wall had lodged the money; that the account was
'not opened' on his instructions but following a conversation between Mr
Wall and his solicitor, and that the money was collected from Mr Brennan's
office.
"I gave an account which was my best recollection and
it was clarified," Ms Larkin said.
"I clarified my
position having had time to reflect.
"I'm sorry Henry, I'm not
very good with dates, I associate things with events."
Barely
audible in the witness box, Ms Larkin said that when she was first contacted
by the tribunal she asked Bertie Ahern "what's this all about?" as
she knew her former partner had been contacted by the tribunal.
She
said that after being contacted by the tribunal she looked for details of
her bank accounts, and opened a separate account for Michael Wall's
IR£28,772.90 which was to renovate the house.
But pressed by
counsel for the tribunal about her earlier account of taking this £28,772.90
from Mr Wall in the office of solicitor Gerry Brennan, Ms Larkin said she
had now pieced together events from further recollections.
The
essence of what she told the tribunal in her original statement was correct,
she maintained -- Mr Wall did not request her to open an account.
Ms
Larkin said that on Saturday December 3, 1994 she spoke to Gerry Brennan,
the now-deceased solicitor of Mr Wall, about administering an account for Mr
Wall at a social gathering also attended by Mr Ahern, Mr Wall and his wife
and friends, Fianna Fail fundraiser Des Richardson and others.
Asked
why she was now given a differing accounts of events, Ms Larkin replied: "When
you think about things over a period of time, you can piece them together."
She
said she didn't think she had a doubt that the money given over by Mr Wall
was in sterling, and denied that she had deliberately misled the tribunal
when at her initial private interview she had stated that she had speculated
that this money was sterling.
Mr Murphy said in her initial
statement to the tribunal she had not mentioned meeting Mr Brennan, adding
that she also knew the money was in sterling.
Ms Larkin said that
matters were being teased out in the private interview. She was giving her
best recollection.
"I was piecing pieces together and Gerry
was involved," she added. Mr Murphy suggested to her that her varying
accounts were 'nonsense'.
"You look startled," counsel
added.
"You want me to say I talk nonsense," Ms Larkin
retorted.
- Lorna Reid and Paul Melia
