The tribunal has established that in the period May 25th to June 29th, 1989, £188,872 was lodged to the Fianna Fail party leader's account. It is endeavouring to establish how much of this money was intended for the medical fund for the late Mr Brian Lenihan.
The lodgments constituted a huge amount of money relative to what normally passed through the account. The tribunal has already heard from the former party treasurer, Mr Paul Kavanagh, that he raised funds for Mr Lenihan's care during this period, and handed the money to Ms Eileen Foy for lodgment. Ms Foy was a private secretary to Mr Charles Haughey, then Taoiseach, and administered the party leader's account. Neither witness has been able to say precisely how much was raised.
In 1989 Fianna Fail was being given a party leader's allowance of about £8,500 per month. When this amount is subtracted from the overall figure for lodgments for May-June 1989, it leaves £180,000 about which no explanation has been offered, other than that funds for Mr Lenihan's US liver transplant were being placed in the account.
When the possibility that funds meant for Mr Lenihan might have been diverted first arose in July last, Mr Haughey twice broke his characteristic silence in relation to matters concerning the tribunal. However, he has not yet offered an explanation as to how so much money came to be lodged to the account during May-June 1989.
It is known that £20,000 was donated to the Lenihan fund by Dr Edmund Farrell on behalf of the Irish Permanent Building Society, but not lodged to the party leader's account. What happened to the money is not known.
The available evidence is that £82,000 was paid out of the party leader's account for expenses incurred by Mr Lenihan in the US. On October 15th Ms Foy told the tribunal she also believed Mr Lenihan was given cash, but when she was questioned on this she could not say why she believed this to be the case.
Ms Ann Lenihan's appearance yesterday was brief, especially considering the time the tribunal has spent investigating the Lenihan fund. She arrived with Mr Brian Lenihan TD and another family member, and was clear and businesslike in her evidence. Essentially her evidence amounted to a rebuttal of Ms Foy's comments in relation to the late Mr Lenihan being given cash.
Ms Lenihan said on the morning she and her husband were about to travel to the Mayo Clinic in the US, Mr Haughey's driver came to their Castleknock home and handed them an envelope from the then Taoiseach. When she opened it she found it contained approximately £200. She said this would have happened about a month before her late husband's operation on May 23rd. She considered it a generous gesture on the part of Mr Haughey.
She said she was satisfied she or her late husband did not receive any other cash from Mr Haughey. Ms Lenihan did not know Mr Kavanagh was involved in the raising of funds, though she did know Mr Haughey and the late Mr Peter Hanley were. She did not know of any list of donors being given to her husband upon his return from the US. Mr Kavanagh has said he got such a list from Ms Foy and gave it to Mr Lenihan.
With £180,000 in excess of the party leader's allowance being lodged to the party leader's account in May-June 1989, and a further £20,000 from the Irish Permanent being known about, the tribunal is seeking to account for £200,000. To date it has an explanation for £82,000.
The tribunal was given details yesterday of the total lodgments to the leader's account each year from 1984 to 1992, the total allowance given by the State to Fianna Fail in each of those years, and the excess of lodgments over allowance in each year that an excess occurred. By far the largest excess occurred in the year of Mr Lenihan's operation. Excesses of £100,000-plus occurred in 1986 and 1991, both years in which substantial payments from the Irish Permanent to Fianna Fail ended up in the leader's allowance account.
In February 1991 an as yet unexplained lodgment of £25,000 was made. In total the excess lodged to the account over the years was £538,000. The tribunal adjourned yesterday until a date to be announced.