The late Fine Gael TD Mr Hugh Coveney was an Ansbacher deposit-holder in the 1970s and borrowed a substantial sum from Guinness and Mahon Cayman Trust to finance an ultimately disastrous business deal, the tribunal was told.
Mr John Coughlan SC said that from 1972 to 1979 the former minister was the beneficiary of offshore deposits "bearing all the badges of the Ansbacher operation". Mr Coveney was elected to the Dail two years after he stopped using his Ansbacher accounts.
However, in 1980 Mr Coveney became involved with the development of a mobile home park near Phoenix, Arizona.
Three US investors put up half of the investment, and the rest came from "non-US partners operating from an offshore location", Mr Coughlan said.
A trust was established, of which Guinness Mahon Cayman Trust became the trustees. The beneficiaries of the trust would be five Cayman Island companies. The finance for the venture was provided by AIB in New York, which lent $2.77 million to the trust.
The arrangement also required joint and separate guarantees by the five Irish participants.
