Cash details sought from bank in past

Lodgements:Bertie Ahern asked his bank for information about large cash lodgements to his accounts almost 2½ years before the tribunal was inquiring about the same payments, it has emerged.

In December 2004, Mr Ahern asked AIB for information about seven five-figure lodgements to his accounts in the early 1990s, out of a total of 96 large cash lodgements made during the period, the tribunal heard.

Des O'Neill SC, for the tribunal, said these transactions were, in the main, the focus of the tribunal's subsequent inquiries. Referring to the "considerable coincidence" between the two inquiries, he asked what had triggered Mr Ahern's interest in these lodgements.

Mr Ahern said he had made a list of lodgements and these were big amounts for which he didn't have records. There were other large cash amounts he hadn't asked about.

Mr O'Neill said that Mr Ahern knew after making inquiries from the bank that it couldn't establish the source of the lodgements involved.

He knew that the bank's information was incomplete because it didn't record that sterling had been exchanged to make the lodgements.

Mr Ahern said he still didn't understand how the tribunal had moved from an investigation of the alleged payment by Owen O'Callaghan into a general trawl through his finances. He still didn't understand how he had been moved on to the "J2 list" of matters still under investigation by the tribunal.

"I don't understand how it was that I moved on to the J2 list and how I had a category on that list, all matters involving Bertie Ahern directly or indirectly. That is a catch all, it was everything from cradle to grave, I don't know why I was in that category." Mr O'Neill said the tribunal was continuously focused on following the money trail in relation to the revelation of financial details by Mr Ahern. However, correspondence between the inquiry and Mr Ahern had failed to provide the tribunal with the information that would allow it to establish the source of certain lodgements to Mr Ahern's accounts.

Conor Maguire SC, for Mr Ahern, said the O'Callaghan allegations related to the period 1989-92 and it was unfair for his client to be criticised for focusing on this period. It was unfair for him to be accused of trying to hide behind dates that went beyond then.

As a result of a distillation process, the tribunal was now looking at five foreign exchange transactions in which money was lodged to Mr Ahern's account in 1994 and 1995, Mr O'Neill said, as well as three payments lodged to Celia Larkin's accounts in the same years.