FORMER TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern said yesterday that there was no connection between the £30,000 lodged to his account in April 1994 and a meeting he had had with Cork developer Owen O'Callaghan four weeks earlier.
He also said a lodgement of more than £28,000 by his then partner Celia Larkin in December 1994 had nothing to do with the fact that he expected to become taoiseach that year.
In Mr Ahern's last day at the tribunal, he was questioned as part of the Quarryvale II module, an investigation into allegations of corruption surrounding the rezoning of land on which the Liffey Valley shopping centre is built.
The tribunal heard that Mr Ahern met Mr O'Callaghan on March 24th, 1994.
According to Mr O'Callaghan, they discussed the tax designation of Blanchardstown shopping centre and Liffey Valley shopping centre.
Mr O'Callaghan said he was given assurances by Mr Ahern, then minister for finance, that neither centre would be given a tax designation and he passed this on at a meeting with his bankers.
Luton-based developer Tom Gilmartin, Mr O'Callaghan's partner in the Quarryvale development, had also said Mr O'Callaghan had repeated the assurance at a bank meeting in AIB headquarters in Ballsbridge, Dublin.
However he could not definitively put a date on the meeting and he said Mr O'Callaghan told him he had received the assurance from Mr Ahern in a phone call.
He also said Mr O'Callaghan told him he paid Mr Ahern £30,000 to ensure Blanchardstown did not get designation.
Mr Ahern had told the tribunal that the £30,000 lodged to his account on April 25th was cash he had saved in his safe over several years.
Des O'Neill SC, counsel for the tribunal, asked Mr Ahern yesterday if there was any connection between his meeting with Mr O'Callaghan and the lodgement of £30,000 to his AIB account.
"Absolutely not," Mr Ahern said.
Mr O'Neill told the tribunal that American financiers Chilton O'Connor, wrote to Mr Ahern to congratulation him on becoming leader of Fianna Fáil at the end of November 1994.
At the time, the company was supporting another of Mr O'Callaghan's projects, a proposed national stadium at Neilstown west Dublin.
Mr O'Neill asked Mr Ahern if a lodgement of £28,772.90, to the account of Ms Larkin on December 5th, 1994, had any connection with the fact that it looked as though he would become taoiseach.
The tribunal had heard the sum appeared to equal $45,000, and had been explained as money belonging to Manchester builder Michael Wall.
Mr Ahern denied any connection between the lodgement and his expected appointment.
"Never in my 40 years working in the public service, never have I taken a bribe or money from an individual, including any of the people put forward in this," he said.
"I never, ever, from any of those individuals to the best of my recollection, got a cup of coffee, not to mind money."
Mr Ahern also has said he did not know Mr O'Callaghan was asked to donate £100,000 to Fianna Fáil before he met him.
Although he was chairman of the party's national finance committee, he said the decision about whom to ask for money was taken by members of the national finance committee and not by ministers.
"I understand conspiracy theories, but. . . there is as good as ever Chinese walls between what happens in cabinet decisions of every nature and what the political party system [does]", Mr Ahern said.
Mr O'Neill asked him if he was saying he believed no politician ever took money inappropriately.
"That's my evidence, I never saw it linked up," Mr Ahern said.
