In statements issued to the media in January 1998, Mr Dermot Desmond said he had never given money to Mr Charles Haughey during his period in public office. He chose not to reveal any payments made since Mr Haughey left office.
Yesterday the tribunal revealed two instances of money going from Mr Desmond to Mr Haughey after Mr Haughey left power. The first donation in September 1994 was for £100,000 sterling. The money was transferred from Geneva to an account in the Ansbacher deposits used for Mr Haughey's benefit. It eventually went towards paying Mr Haughey's personal bills which, the tribunal also revealed, totalled £3.4 million from January 1985 to December 1996.
In November 1996, Mr Desmond contributed a further £24,630 and the money was again fed into Mr Haughey's bill-paying system.
An investment account in the name of Overseas Nominees Ltd was opened with National City Brokers in July 1988. Overseas Nominees was a nominee company belonging to Ansbacher (Cayman), the Cayman Islands bank. The account was opened following an approach to Mr Desmond from Mr Haughey's personal financial adviser, the late Mr Des Traynor. Three lodgements were made: £105,586 in July 1988; £149,432 in August 1988; and £98,504 in September 1988.
The tribunal is seeking to establish the source of the funds. To date it has established the money came from NCB's sterling settlement account with Bank of Ireland, a working account for dealings involving sterling.
The Overseas Nominees account was closed in September 1995. It had been dormant from 1991, the year Mr Desmond resigned as chairman of NCB. Instructions were given by Mr Traynor and, after his death, by Mr Padraig Collery. The Cayman Islands banker, Mr John Furze, was also involved. All three were involved in running the Ansbacher deposits.
Mr John Coughlan SC, for the tribunal, said Mr Desmond, who was the "contact man" for the account, had said he did not know who the beneficiary of the account was.
Subsequent to the opening of the Haughey account, a number of other Overseas Nominees accounts were opened with NCB and operated for a number of years. In his media statements in 1998 Mr Desmond mentioned a loan for the refurbishment of the Haughey yacht, Celtic Mist, which he said he arranged in 1990 for Conor Haughey but which had since been "settled".
Mr Coughlan, in the course of a lengthy opening statement, said Mr Conor Haughey had informed the tribunal the money, £74,564, had not been repaid. The money came from Dedeir, an investment company linked to Mr Desmond, and Freezone Investments Ltd, a Channel Islands company. Both loans were later consolidated in Freezone, and when that company was wound up in 1997, the loan was taken on by its "sole shareholder", Mr Colin Probets.
Mr Probets is a Guernsey-based financier who was at the heart of the scandal in the early 1990s concerning the former Johnson Mooney and O'Brien site in Ballsbridge, Dublin. The Glackin report in 1993 concluded Mr Desmond was the beneficial owner of Freezone, one of the companies involved in dealings in relation to the site. Mr Probets and Mr Desmond had claimed the Guernsey financier was the owner of the company.
Mr Desmond told the tribunal he has taken on the Celtic Mist loan from Mr Probets but that there is no assignment documentation in relation to this. He said ever the yacht is sold.