Latest cheque revelations see Bertie sitting on a powderkeg
The Holy Child had only three friendly donors, offering gold, frankincense and myrrh. Saintlier Bertie had eight Drumcondra wiseguys at Christmas, followed by four kings of Beaumont, and 20-25 well-disposed Manchester businessmen.
"Blasphemy!" cry Ministers Dermot Ahern, Dick Roche and Willie O'Dea. But it turns out they are talking only about the tribunal's treatment of the wounded Ahern as he carries his cross of martyrdom.
Yesterday, we had it from the Taoiseach's senior counsel. "This is a prosecution without an indictment. This witness is being pilloried," said Conor Maguire, SC. But eventually we moved into evidence -- and the unremitting focus on the facts, and nothing but the facts. They eventually have to be explained.
Bertie still can't convince. Yesterday opened with a clear contradiction between what the Taoiseach said -- in private interview last April -- as to when it was he had a crucial conversation with bank officials that led to the first in a long series of "dodgy lodgments".
The Taoiseach yesterday changed his story to say that this encounter -- when AIB official Phillip Murphy told the Minister for Finance that he was "insane" not to lodge cash savings to an account -- took place on December 23, not a week later.
But the presentation of the IR£22,500 in cash to Mr Ahern, by the latter's story, took place on December 27, and came entirely out of the blue.
And yet the evidence separately shows that Gerry Brennan, Bertie's solicitor, had his bill cleared by a bank draft arranged on December 23 ... only four days later to supposedly present Bertie with a £22,500 dig-out to pay legal bills, all of which were in the process of being cleared!
Gerry allegedly organised, but did not contribute. Mr Ahern revealed for the first time yesterday that Brennan had discounted his own bill because Bertie was a friend. But if so, presumably his remaining bill could have been allowed to slide until the impoverished Finance Minister was in a position to repay. Hence no need for a dig-out, nor to organise one.
And, having reduced his fees, what would have been Brennan's motive to get Ahern's friends to cough up MORE (£22,500) than was required to meet the full IR£19,115 legal bill?
Furthermore, Brennan, as Ahern's solicitor, would not have been free to disclose his client's family law business to anyone.
In that alternative, where did the IR£22,500 really come from? One part of it, we know, was IR£5,000 from NCB stockbrokers, intended for Fianna Fail ... and an appalling vista opens.
It was suggested to Mr Ahern that he could have had the IR£22,500 prior to when he said he received it. Bertie denied it, saying: "The sun could crash into the moon but, I mean, it didn't happen."
Tribunal counsel Des O'Neill, no doubt familiar with outer-space evidence, rocketed back: "I am not asking about celestial matters for the moment." The bank records, again and again, remain stubbornly firmly grounded ... so that the moonshine must come from elsewhere.
We looked at a bogus invoice (with 21pc VAT added) sent to NCB stockbrokers in the name of Euro Workforce Ltd, a company originally set up by Des Richardson, who had approached Padraic O'Connor of NCB for five grand. We know the money paid out by the company eventually benefited Bertie.
But why would a personal friend, as O'Connor supposedly was, seek to remain anonymous? He could have given cash, as with other alleged donors.
But he didn't. It was, says Padraic, supported by NCB colleagues, a political donation. Intended for Fianna Fail.
Bertie, we remember, signed blank party cheques for Charlie Haughey. And by the end of yesterday we were into a potential powderkeg.
It concerns a wholly new IR£5,000 cheque converted to Ahern's advantage at the Irish Permanent Building Society in January 1994.The Taoiseach, a cash man to that point -- chequeless -- is now talking to the Revenue about it. But who was the intended beneficiary? And who was the donor? New Year -- new problems!
