Analysis:Two accounts in Drumcondra had been untouched since 1995, writes Colm Keena.
The Mahon tribunal is investigating whether one or more accounts, controlled by close associates of Bertie Ahern and apparently belonging to the Dublin Central O'Donovan Rossa Cumann of Fianna Fáil, contain money in fact beneficially owned by the Taoiseach.
Already the tribunal has discovered that in 1993 money from a cumann account was given to his then partner, Celia Larkin, to assist her to purchase a house. The money was paid back a few weeks ago, after the tribunal began querying transactions across the account.
The money was given to Larkin in March 1993. Ahern has told the tribunal, in a sworn affidavit, that no bank accounts held money beneficially owned by him, in the period 1987 to December 1993, other than joint accounts with his wife Miriam. He has said repeatedly in evidence that all his money during this period was held in cash, in two safes.
Yesterday it emerged that while there are certain rules and controls over the finances and accounting of the Dublin Central Comhairle Dáil Ceanntair, the same rules don't apply in relation to the cumainn that make up the Comhairle.
The cumann with which Ahern is most closely associated is the O'Donovan Rossa Cumann. In the late 1980s a trust was established and funds raised to buy and operate Ahern's constituency centre, St Luke's, and the trust is associated with the cumann rather than the comhairle. The comhairle, therefore, does not have direct control over the operation of the cumann, the St Luke's trust, or any accounts they control.
New laws were introduced in 1995 which meant that all political donations had to be lodged to a constituency donations account, the affairs of which are reported to the Standards in Public Office Commission. The account which held the funds that were given to Larkin was set up in 1989 and the lodgements to it appear to have been political donations. They include £19,000 raised from a golfing event where, according to Ahern, players paid £250 a head to participate.
Since 1995 there have been no transactions across the account. Who exactly has been in control of the account is not clear. The current balance is €47,803.
Tim Collins, who is to give evidence next week, has been a key supporter of Ahern's Drumcondra operation since the 1980s. In 1993 he was secretary of the trustees, secretary of the trust and secretary of the trust finance committee.
It was Collins who opened the account from which the Larkin money was paid, in the Irish Permanent Building Society Drumcondra branch, in 1989. He gave the account the name "B/T" and the address as care of the branch. The branch is across the road from St Luke's.
Collins also signed a form stating the funds in the account were his, and that he was not acting as a nominee. He was the sole signatory but Ahern has said Collins has had nothing to do with the account since 1995.
Ahern said B/T stands for building trust, and that others in the St Luke's organisation knew of the account. He said the full membership of the trust house committee decided to loan £30,000 to Larkin to help her and her family buy a house valued at £40,100 in which three elderly members of Ms Larkin's family had been living for decades, and which was up for sale by the family of the former landlord, who had died.
The members of the committee were: Joe Burke, Des Richardson, Collins; the late Paddy Reilly, the late Jimmy Keane and the solicitor, the late Gerry Brennan.
In the course of his evidence Ahern said there was a second account linked to the cumann, which he called the CODR (Cumann O'Donovan Rossa) account, which again like the B/T account has not been the subject of any transactions since 1995. The cumann and the trust do not have to account for these to the comhairle.
The O'Donovan Rossa cumann, he said, has about 20 members, but these do not include the surviving trustees - ie Burke, Richardson and Collins. How much is in the CODR account was not stated.
Ahern said that at the time money was going in to the B/T and CODR accounts "there was no distinction between a political donation and a donation".