Donation from O'Callaghan denied

Ahern evidence:The Taoiseach has repeated earlier denials that he ever got money from property developer Owen O'Callaghan.

"I never got a glass of water from Mr O'Callaghan, never mind money," Mr Ahern told the tribunal yesterday.

He said another developer, Tom Gilmartin, had made all kinds of mad and crazy allegations against him. Aside from the alleged payments of £50,000 and £30,000, which Mr Gilmartin claims were made to him by Mr O'Callaghan, there were claims that he had got colleagues of his to bribe or blackmail another colleague and he was being accused of having on- and offshore accounts.

"I was being accused not only of having money, which is bad enough, not only of having accounts and offshore accounts, it is difficult enough having onshore accounts never mind offshore accounts but that's neither here nor there, that was my personal life, but this man who has been down my neck for seven-and-a-half years was accusing me of blackmail and these were very serious allegations."

As a politician, he knew allegations were "10 a penny" and it went with the turf. However, these were in a different light because they were made to a senior counsel at a tribunal that was acting under law.

He couldn't understand how, when a person was making wild and scurrilous allegations, a decision could be taken for the tribunal to follow up one of these.

"It does seem unfair to me that if someone makes 20 allegations and 19 of them are nonsense, you come down to the 20th and I spend three years answering that."

Much of yesterday's hearing was taken up by reading of protracted correspondence between the tribunal and Mr Ahern's lawyers. At one point, the tribunal threatened to summons the Taoiseach to appear before it in order to obtain more information about his finances.

Earlier, Mr Ahern read a statement setting out his position regarding the allegations he faces and the questions in relation to his bank lodgements.

Counsel for the tribunal Des O'Neill said the statement contained information not previously available to the tribunal. He asked why the statement had not been provided earlier to the tribunal.

"I don't believe there was anything too new, to be frank," Mr Ahern replied. "It's the first opportunity in seven-and-a-half years of being tormented about these issues that I have had a chance to come before the justices." Mr O'Neill asked why the Taoiseach took the unusual step of making a statement if there was nothing new in it.

Mr Ahern said he had been waiting since 2000 to deal with the matter.

Judge Mahon said it would have been preferable if Mr Ahern's lengthy statement had been made available to the tribunal in advance "but anyway it's made now".