Ex-JMSE man denies telling of `slush fund'

"Never. Absolutely never. Categorically no, never." Mr Gerry Downes's insistence that he had never told Mr James Gogarty - or anyone - of the existence of a "slush fund" within JMSE was unequivocal when he gave evidence at the tribunal yesterday.

Mr Downes insisted he had prepared accounts "conservatively" and knew of no instances in which payments had been made to politicians or political parties, or to the former Dublin assistant city and county manager Mr George Redmond.

Mr Downes, who was appointed financial controller of JMSE in 1983, acknowledged that his recollection of events was not excellent. "I left this company in 1988 under very difficult circumstances and I must say that I spent the next 10 years trying to forget everything about it . . . It is now 11 years after the event," he said.

He could not recall providing or being asked to provide tickets for shows at the Gaiety Theatre when that theatre was under Murphy group control, even though Mr Gogarty gave evidence this was done. Mr Downes emphasised that not only did he not provide tickets for Mr Redmond, but he had never met Mr Redmond until the tribunal begun public hearings earlier this year.

"I nearly fell off my chair when I heard this, I was shocked because it was untrue", he said.

Mr Downes said the company operated a payroll for the general staff which was operated by a payroll clerk. There was a "private payroll" for the more senior, executive staff, he added.

Mr Downes said he had worked closely with Mr Liam Conroy in the JMSE headquarters in Santry, where there was an air of secrecy. He assumed the arrangements for Mr Conroy's remuneration were made between Mr Conroy and Mr Joseph Murphy snr.

During cross-examination by Mr Desmond O'Neill SC, for the tribunal, Mr Downes revealed that regular invoices for £2,500 sterling would arrive "from time to time" from a Channel Islands company, Pro Eng Ltd, and that Mr Conroy instructed him that this invoice should be paid.

Mr Downes also said that on a number of occasions Mr Conroy presented a request for sums in the region of £500 in cash, and a sum of between £40 and £60 a week was provided in cash to cover expenses. Mr Downes said these cash sums were not separately noted in the company accounts, but that he had kept a memorandum of them which he kept in a safe at Santry.

Mr Downes said the safe also contained general paperwork in relation to the company's financial standing, overdraft facilities with the banks and suchlike.

Mr Downes said the working conditions at JMSE had put a strain on his health and he was in the UK when he should have been on a holiday to Canada in June 1988 when he heard of a board meeting being called in Dublin. "The first item in the agenda was to be where is Gerard Downes" he said.

During the meeting it became clear "Mr Conroy had departed the scene, we didn't know why or what had happened, but it looked as if a kind of a boardroom battle was lost from our point of view and that we were each to be interrogated . . . I was terrified at the time and not well," said Mr Downes.

Asked if he could explain why Mr Frank Reynolds, Mr Gay Grehan and Mr James Gogarty had refused to sign the company accounts for the year ending May 31st, 1987, Mr Downes said Mr Reynolds was not at that time an executive director while Mr Grehan had not been an employee of the company for the period which the accounts covered.

Under cross-examination by Mr Dan Herbert SC, for the Murphy group, Mr Downes said he absolutely denied he had told Mr Gogarty that there was a slush fund in operation.