Events surrounding cash handover described

Larkin's differing accounts:Celia Larkin has given the tribunal three different accounts of the circumstances in which over £28,000 in cash belonging to a Manchester-based businessman was passed to her then partner Bertie Ahern in 1994, according to tribunal lawyers.

Henry Murphy SC, for the tribunal, said he could not reconcile the accounts given by Ms Larkin in her statement, in a private interview with tribunal lawyers and in a subsequent letter from her solicitors to the inquiry.

Mr Murphy said that when the evidence given by the businessman, Michael Wall, was added, the tribunal had four different versions of the December 1994 transaction.

At the time, Mr Wall had just contracted to buy a house in Drumcondra which Mr Ahern was to rent, with an option to purchase. The £28,000 was to cover the cost of stamp duty and the construction of a conservatory.

According to Mr Murphy, the circumstances in which Mr Wall's money ended up in an account opened by Ms Larkin in Dublin should be a simple matter, with no mystery involved, yet the tribunal had four different versions of the matter.

Ms Larkin said she had clarified and corrected her original recollection.

There was no question but that Mr Wall's money ended up in the bank account. She had not known her interview with tribunal lawyers would end up as the subject of a cross-examination and had not chosen her words carefully at the time.

Counsel pointed out that Ms Larkin had originally told the tribunal that Mr Wall himself lodged the sum of £28,772.90.

In an interview with the tribunal last year, she said that she took the money from Mr Wall at a meeting in the offices of the late Gerry Brennan, who was Mr Ahern's legal representative at the time.

She also said the money involved "might" have been in sterling.

However, last July her solicitors told the tribunal in a letter that their client had clarified and corrected a number of issues in her private interview and had recollected further detail since then.

The bank account into which the £28,000 was lodged was not opened on the specific instructions of Mr Wall, Ms Larkin's solicitors said, but was opened following a discussion with Mr Brennan. In addition, Ms Larkin did not take Mr Wall's money in Mr Brennan's office but was asked by Mr Ahern to collect it from St Luke's and bring it to the bank.

In evidence yesterday, Ms Larkin said Mr Wall had not requested her to open an account; he had requested her to look after the dealings in relation to the house. The essence of what she had originally said was correct. It was Mr Wall's money that went into the account.

The significance of the dates of the transaction had not been explained to her at the tribunal interview, she said; she hadn't known that it was the weekend before Mr Ahern was expected to become Taoiseach.

Once the relevance of these dates became apparent she was able to piece together events better.

She denied deliberately misleading the tribunal originally by suggesting she was not sure the money was largely made up of sterling. "I have no doubt it was sterling," she said.

Recalling the handover of the money, Ms Larkin said there was a lot of activity at Mr Ahern's constituency office, St Luke's, on Saturday, December 3rd, 1994, when Mr Wall arrived. She was there for the end of the meeting, for the discussion on where the money was to go.

She saw the money on the table in bundles on top of each other. Mr Ahern was taking some of it into the back office where the safe was.

While she was surprised to see cash on the table - it wasn't something she saw every day - she wasn't surprised when it was explained what the money was for. It made sense, as the money was for the renovation of the house and Mr Wall was from Manchester.

On the Sunday, Mr Ahern asked her to take the money to the AIB branch on O'Connell Street the following day as he was travelling abroad on business. He told her to collect the briefcase containing the money in his office, which he left beside his desk. A series of other briefcases in front of his desk contained Government papers.

Asked if she knew how much money was involved, Ms Larkin said she was dealing with a life partner and his friend and she would have just taken the money to the bank. On the Monday, she was driven to the bank by Mr Ahern's driver, where she handed the briefcase over to AIB manager Philip Murphy and obtained a receipt for £28,772.90 along with the empty briefcase.

Earlier, Ms Larkin, a former civil servant who now owns a number of beauty salons, said she had a close professional and personal relationship with Mr Ahern for a number of years. As well as working in several Government departments when Mr Ahern was the minister, she was in charge of his constituency office.

Mr Wall was a friend of Mr Ahern's who was interested in setting up a business in Dublin and needed a place to stay. Mr Ahern was interested in renting a house with an option to buy.

Ms Larkin said she looked at a number of houses in Drumcondra on behalf of Mr Wall and identified 44, Beresford as suitable. Mr Wall successfully tendered to buy this house by tender for £138,000 in November 1994.

What Celia Larkin told the tribunal

1 In a memo to the tribunal written in June 2006: Michael Wall lodged £28,772.90 with AIB O'Connell Street on Monday, December 5th, 1994, after she opened a new account at his request. The lodgement was an unusual figure because the money lodged was originally sterling.

2 At a meeting with the tribunal in June 2006: She thought she lodged the money after she was given it by Mr Wall at a meeting in the offices of the late solicitor, Gerry Brennan, who acted for both Mr Wall and Bertie Ahern. She thought it was sterling.

3 In a letter to the tribunal in July 2007, and yesterday: She collected the money at St Luke's, Drumcondra, at the request of Mr Ahern, and she lodged it to AIB.