Former taoiseach Bertie Ahern lodged £30,000 in cash to a savings account in Dublin one month after a meeting at which he assured the developer of the Quarryvale, now Liffey Valley centre that a rival centre would not be getting tax designation, the Mahon tribunal heard today.
The tribunal is investigating an allegation from developer Tom Gilmartin that he was told by his fellow developer Owen O’Callaghan that Ahern was given £30,000 in return for blocking tax designation for a town centre in Blanchardstown.
Mr Ahern today accepted the evidence given earlier this year by Mr O’Callaghan that he, Mr Ahern, the then Minister for Finance, told O'Callaghan during a meeting in the Department of Finance on March 24th, 1994, that neither Blanchardstown nor O’Callaghan’s proposed development at Quarryvale, would be getting designation.
Mr Ahern said he was merely telling Mr O’Callaghan what was well-known Government policy at the time.
Des O’Neill SC, for the tribunal, said Mr O’Callaghan had also said he had relayed this assurance back to colleagues at a subsequent meeting with his bankers. Similar evidence has been given by Mr Gilmartin, who has said Mr O’Callaghan told him after the meeting with the bankers that he paid Mr Ahern £30,000 in return for the assurance.
Mr O’Neill said that on April 25th, 1994, Mr Ahern lodged £30,000 in cash to a special savings account in AIB O’Connell Street, Dublin. Mr Ahern has said the lodgement was the first of a number of lodgements of cash he’d accumulated in his safe over a number of years.
“So there was no connection with the meeting of a month earlier?” said Mr O’Neill. “Absolutely not,” said Mr Ahern.
Mr O’Callaghan, in his evidence earlier this year, said he sought the meeting with Mr Ahern as he was concerned when Ray MacSharry was appointed to the board of Green Property plc in the early 1990s, as the company was developing the town centre in Blanchardstown. Mr O’Callaghan was concerned that the Blanchardstown site might get tax designation and his rival centre at Quarryvale would not. He believed lobbyist Frank Dunlop may have arranged the meeting with Mr Ahern. He said Mr Ahern told him “very quickly” that neither Blanchardstown nor Quarryvale would be getting designation.
Mr Ahern said he could not recall the meeting with Mr O’Callaghan.
Mr O’Neill said that some time before Christmas 1993 Mr McSharry had gone to Mr O’Callaghan seeking a £100,000 donation to Fianna Fáil. At a dinner in Cork on March 11th, 1994, two weeks prior to Mr O’Callaghan’s meeting with Mr Ahern in the Department of Finance, Mr O’Callaghan had given the party £10,000.
Mr Ahern, who was national tresurer of Fianna Fáil at the time, said he wouldn’t have known at the time that Mr O’Callaghan was one of the people being approached by the party in an effort to clear its £3 million plus debt. He said he would have known Mr O’Callaghan as at the fund-raising dinner in Cork, but wouldn’t have known about his donation.
Mr O’Neill showed Mr Ahern an entry from Mr Ahern’s diary showing he met with his friend, the then full -ime Fianna Fáil fund-raiser, Des Richardson, and Niall Welch, the Cork businessman at whose home the March 1994 fund-raising dinner was held, two days before the dinner. The three men met for breakfast in the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin.
However Mr Ahern said they would not have discussed the upcoming dinner, who was coming and how much might be collected. He was later shown an expenses record from Des Richardson where he listed £33.15 for breakfast on the date concerned in the Shelbourne with Mr Ahern and Mr Welch, where they’d discussed “the Cork event”. However Mr Ahern said he wasn’t changing his evidence that they would not have discussed the details of the forthcoming fund-raising dinner.