ANALYSIS:The Taoiseach yesterday had no response to the evidence that has emerged in the last few days at the tribunal, writexs Colm Keena.
TRIBUNAL COUNSEL Des O'Neill SC put it to the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern's former constituency secretary, Gráinne Carruth, that she had given evidence to the tribunal last year which she now accepts was untrue.
She agreed that what she had said was "factually inaccurate" but said it was what she believed at the time.
O'Neill went on to remind her that the tribunal had been set up by the Oireachtas and that it can only make its findings of fact if witnesses tell the truth.
He told her of the consequences that can flow for persons who "wilfully" tell an "untruth", namely imprisonment for up to two years and fines of up to €300,000, as well as the possibility of criminal conviction for perjury.
It will be interesting to see if a similar preamble is made when the Taoiseach next comes to give evidence. If Carruth, a secretary who in 1994 was being paid £66 per week, is to be treated in such a way for her failure to tell the tribunal that she went to the Irish Permanent branch in Drumcondra on three occasions in 1994, with four-figure sums of sterling cash, having received the money from the then minister for finance with instructions to lodge it to his and his daughters' accounts, then what attitude should the tribunal take towards the former minister?
The gulf between what the tribunal has now been told, and what the Taoiseach told the tribunal in correspondence dating back to 2006, and in sworn evidence in February, about his Irish Permanent account, is huge.
Carruth's evidence, and that of the former Irish Permanent branch manager Blair Hughes, who gave evidence on Wednesday, raises very difficult questions for Ahern, yet his legal team were not present for yesterday's hearings.
Carruth's and Blair's evidence has, so far, gone unchallenged.
The Taoiseach was quite clear in his February evidence to the tribunal that the lodgements to the Irish Permanent account arose from the cashing of his salary cheques.
In general, he said, round-figure lodgements were where a cheque was cashed and some money withdrawn, leaving a round figure for the account.
Odd-figure lodgements were where accumulated salary cheques were lodged. (No single salary cheque was lodged. If it had been, it could be checked against the records of the Paymaster General's office.)
This week's evidence and the archival records from the Irish Permanent are directly at odds with Ahern's version of events.
Carruth said any money lodged was given to her by Ahern; that when she was sent to the branch she would be given the "pass books" associated with Ahern's and his daughters' accounts; and that when she had carried out the transactions, she would return the receipts and the books to Ahern, or leave them in a drawer for him in St Luke's.
Blair said the records of the branch show sterling cash being converted into particular Irish pound amounts, and then those amounts being lodged, on the same day by the same teller, to Ahern and his daughter's accounts, with the associated lodgement slips having Carruth's name and address on them.
Carruth has accepted the logic of the records, and the conclusion that she did made lodgements on Ahern's behalf involving sterling cash given to her by him.
O'Neill asked Carruth if it was credible that she could not recall the lodgements.
"I can't remember it," she said. "I just can't remember it."
It would be extraordinary if the Taoiseach was to give similar evidence.
On the face of it, there are only two possible responses he can give, and each of them would be hugely damaging for him.
He can stick to his former evidence despite the bank records showing the involvement of sterling cash, and the evidence from Hughes and Carruth as to what the records mean.
Or he can accept the logic of the records, in which case he will have to explain where the sterling came from, and also explain his evidence in February.
Perhaps there is some other alternative but if there is, no one on the Taoiseach's team was offering to make it public yesterday.