ANALYSIS:The tribunal is struggling to clear up how the Ahern HQ was bought and who owns it, writes Colm Keena, Public Affairs Correspondent.
A NUMBER of close associates of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern raised or banked approximately a quarter of a million pounds in the period 1988-1994, evidence heard by the Mahon tribunal this week shows.
This money is over and above the significant sums that have earlier featured in the tribunal's inquiries into Mr Ahern's personal finances.
No elected officer of Mr Ahern's Dublin Central constituency organisation had control over the approximately £248,500 that featured in the tribunal's evidence on Thursday, and the evidence indicates that little or nothing in the way of documentation was available to the constituency organisation.
The people who controlled all this money were the trustees of St Luke's and Mr Ahern's friend and personal solicitor, the late Gerry Brennan. The trustees are/were: Joe Burke; the late Paddy Reilly; Tim Collins; Des Richardson; and the late Jimmy Keane. Mr Collins and Mr Richardson have never been members of Fianna Fáil.
Thursday's evidence from Mr Collins raised questions over how St Luke's was bought for £56,000 in 1988, and who exactly owns it.
The evidence indicates that while elected constituency and Cumann O'Donovan Rossa officers operated accounts through which relatively small amounts of money passed and were accounted for, significantly larger amounts passed through accounts controlled by Mr Collins and/or others, for which he did not have to account to elected officers.
The tribunal heard that in January 1988, an account called the CODR account was opened with AIB with a lodgement of £22,955.13. Over the period to July of that year, a total of £50,000 was lodged to the account, and £44,000 withdrawn. The purposes of the withdrawals are not clear.
The statements on the accounts were sent to Mr Ahern's office above Fagan's pub in Drumcondra, at a time when the cumann's office was on Amiens Street. The tribunal has queried whether the account had anything to do with Mr Ahern's O'Donovan Rossa cumann.
In May 1988, St Luke's was bought for £56,000. Mr Collins helped raise the funds and was appointed a trustee of the property at the time of the purchase. He said, variously, that the funds came from 24 or 25 people, or 23 or 25 people. He could not say where the funds were gathered before the purchase.
"I cannot answer that but I'm sure the accounts will show where that came from," Mr Collins said.
Des O'Neill SC, for the tribunal, replied: "Well, they don't, Mr Collins."
A document associated with the purchase and signed by all the trustees, including Mr Collins, says the trustees "are not to hold the property for their own absolute use and benefit but upon the trust here and after declared and as directed by the settlors of the trust the St Luke's Club."
Asked who the St Luke's club were, Mr Collins indicated he had never heard of it. "The first time I've come across that, St Luke's club. Now, reading that now," he said. He could not say if Mr Ahern's cumann had an interest in St Luke's, or if he'd ever seen a document listing the persons who had contributed towards its purchase.
In May 1989, in the run-up to the general election, an account was opened in AIB Drumcondra in the name of Fianna Fáil with the statements to be held at the branch for Mr Ahern and Mr Burke. The opening lodgement was £5,000. Within a short period the balance was £24,000. In January 1990 the balance in the account of £17,019 was transferred to the CODR account.
In November 1992, in the run-up to the general election, two accounts called Fianna Fáil election accounts were opened with AIB Drumcondra, one with Mr Collins's name on it, the second with that of an elected constituency treasurer.
By the end of the election £500 had been lodged to the latter account and it was overdrawn by £1,572. The Collins account had a positive balance of £28,478. Asked why this alternative account was set up, Mr Collins said he could not explain it.
Mr Collins was secretary of the fundraising committee for the 1989 and 1992 elections.
The two largest contributions towards the 1992 election campaign, two cheques for £5,000 each, were lodged by Mr Collins to an account called the B/T account in January 1993. One of the cheques, made out to Bertie Ahern, was written by Davy Stockbrokers on November 11th, 1992, and given towards election expenses.
Mr Collins said it was diverted to the B/T account because he and the other members of a committee had decided the campaign would generate an excess of expenses.
The B/T account was opened in 1989 and Mr Collins said surplus political donations were lodged to it. In the period to 1994, a number of large round-figure withdrawals were made, often in cash, totalling £61,000. No documentation exists to support what the tribunal has been told were the various reasons for these withdrawals, save in the case of a withdrawal of £30,000 in 1993 that went towards the purchase of a house by Celia Larkin, Mr Ahern's then partner.
In 1994 a £20,000 cash withdrawal was made. A lodgement of the same amount two months later seems to have been immediately preceded by an exchange of sterling cash. Other significant lodgements attributed to golf classics have been queried by the tribunal.
Mr Collins says the account was overseen by a committee comprising all the trustees bar Mr Richardson, as well as Mr Brennan. He was the sole signatory and the account statements were kept at the branch, which believed he owned the money in the account.
There have been no transactions across the CODR and B/T accounts since 1995 and the current balance on the B/T account exceeds €47,000. Mr Collins has denied that B/T stood for "Bertie and Tim". He said the letters stood for "building trust".