Flynn denies using Gilmartin money for funds

Mr Pádraig Flynn has denied suggestions by lawyers for the Planning Tribunal he used a substantial part of the £50,000 given to him by property developer Mr Tom Gilmartin to invest in offshore funds.

Mr Flynn told the tribunal this morning his wife Dorothy had lodged the £50,000 cheque from the builder into a non-resident account in the Allied Irish Bank in Castlebar some time after May 1989.

Mr Gilmartin has said he gave the former EU commissioner and minister the money as a donation to the Fianna Fáil party for political expenses.

Bank statements show two separate withdrawals of £25,000 each from this account in October and November 1989. Mr Flynn said he did not withdraw the money - but presumed his wife Dorothy took it out in cash and put it in the safe in their house.

It was then used for "the purpose for which it was intended", namely expenses during his general election campaign, he said.

The election was in June 1989. The money withdrawn in October and November was essentially to reimburse himself, he said. According to a statement given to the tribunal by Mr Flynn's lawyers, he spent a total of £12,000 on election expenses.

Politics is "an expensive business", and his "huge" constituency - which stretched 135 miles "from the Bridge of Shrule to Blacksod Bay" - needed considerable resources to cover.

The money was used for hoardings, posters, newspaper advertisements, transport, office expenses, refreshments, entertainment and other costs. "There was a very considerable outlay on a daily basis," he said. Even the period after the election was expensive, as celebrations could go on for two months. He had no receipts for any of these expenses, he said.

A further £25,000 was used by Mr Flynn in three unit fund investments organised by his daughter, Beverley, who was a financial consultant in National Irish Bank at the time. Another £10,000 used to top-up the investment in July 1990.

Ms Patricia Dillon, SC for the tribunal, repeatedly asked Mr Flynn if it was not the case he had used part of Mr Gilmartin's money to invest in offshore accounts, rather than on Fianna Fáil party political expenses as the builder intended.

Mr Flynn rejected this, repeatedly insisting the money used for these investment funds was not necessarily Mr Gilmartin's money, despite the fact that £50,000 of the £73,000 in the account was from the builder.

"The investment was £25,000, but I'm not prepared to accept that all of the investment - in fact very little of it - could have been interpreted as coming from Mr Gilmartin."

He also said while he asked people for money for Fianna Fáil throughout his career, he "never asked for a political contribution in my life".

In addition to the £50,000 from Mr Gilmartin, Mr Flynn disclosed only two contributions - one for £8,000 from National Toll Roads in January 1993 and another for £3,000 from Davey Stockbrokers in November 1992.

He told Ms Patricia Dillon, SC for the tribunal, that he had no records of any other donations, although he conceded he had received large amounts of money from "my family, my friends and my supporters".

"Every contribution I got over 30 years, I didn't write it down in a little black book," he said. "Don't be asking me to remember everything that happened 16,17,18 years ago when I didn't keep a record."