Claims of £1.1m payments detailed in correspondence

DETAILS of allegations of payments of more than £1 million from Dunnes Stores to a senior Fianna Fail figure are contained in formal correspondence between Mr Ben Dunne and the rest of the Dunne family.

The correspondence relates to an affidavit by Mr Ben Dunne in which the allegations - which will be central to the Dunnes payments tribunal now under way - first surface.

The documents contain Mr Dunne's allegations of how the payments were made and who he believed was the beneficiary. But sources emphasise it may be impossible to prove who was the final beneficiary.

The total of £1.1 million mentioned in the affidavit and detailed in the subsequent correspondence is made up of four separate payments made between 1989 and 1991. All the payments were made from bank accounts outside the State to London accounts.

The first allegation of the payments is contained in a document headed "Affidavit of Bernard Dunne", completed in October or November of 1994. Details of the transactions are then contained in correspondence which ensued between Mr Dunne and other family members in preparation for a court case which was settled in late 1994.

This correspondence - known as interrogatories - consists of questions asked by one party in the court case to the other about details of claims made in various documents.

If the documents come before the tribunal much of the attention will focus on payments of £750,000 made in two transactions to an account in Barclays Bank in London in the name of John Furze. Mr Furze is a banker based in the Cayman Islands who set up the Guinness & Mahon operation there with the late Irish accountant, Mr Des Traynor.

The documents also contain allegations of a further payment of £350,000 to unnamed English bank accounts, bringing the total to £1.1 million. All the payments were made by telegraphic transfer.

There was legal discussion at a sitting of the Dunnes tribunal yesterday about which documents should be released, with counsel for Mr Ben Dunne saying his client believed he might be legally constrained from releasing some papers under a confidentiality agreement concluded with Dunnes Stores as part of his severance package in November 1994.

But counsel for Dunnes Stores said they had made it clear they would be willing to supply all these documents. And Mr Justice Brian McCracken, the sole member of the tribunal, said any order he made would over-ride any private confidentiality agreement.

The affidavit and related documents contain the name of a number of intermediaries involved in arranging the payments. Mr Dunne was approached seeking the funds by a business person close to the company, the documents say, who in turn had been approached by an accountant.

The payments were made from offshore accounts held by Dunnes Stores and under the control at the time of Mr Ben Dunne. Dunnes would have held accounts in the Far East at the time. It also holds accounts in Northern Ireland.