MR Charles Haughey would neither confirm nor deny that he was given more than £1 million by Mr Ben Dunne when confronted about it by Mrs Margaret Heffernan, the Dunnes Payments Tribunal was told yesterday.
Instead he deflected attention to discussing Mr Dunne's stability, Mrs Heffernan said.
Giving evidence to the fifth day of the tribunal, Mrs Heffernan said that after the company's accountant, Mr Michael Irwin, said her brother had made such a donation, she arranged a meeting with Mr Haughey.
She met him alone in Kinsealy. "I said it had come to my knowledge that my brother had given him £1.1 million. He was totally relaxed about it, and he said: `I can't be responsible for what your brother says'."
Asked by Mr Denis McCullough SC, counsel for the tribunal, if she had told the former Taoiseach that her brother had told her this, she said she did not really remember. Mr McCullough asked: "Why then did Mr Haughey say he could not be responsible for what your brother said?"
"He went on to talk about my brother. I think my brother had had an accident. He said he felt my brother was unstable. That was the line of the conversation."
"Was he indicating that your brother could not be trusted?"
"Yes."
"Did you ask him if he got money?"
"Yes," replied Mrs Heffernan. "He neither confirmed nor denied it to me. He actually avoided the question. He kept going back to the stability of my brother."
Asked about her reaction to this conversation, she said: "I have to tell you I left there having doubts about the stability of my brother and whether he [Mr Haughey] ever got payments."
Asked by Mr Justice McCracken if she was surprised he did not deny it, she said: "I don't know the man very well. He certainly changed the subject very well, to my brother's stability."
Mr McCullough asked if she tried to steer the conversation back and she said: "Yes. Not very successfully." She reported the conversation to her brother, Frank, and he had said they needed to look into it more.
Earlier, Mrs Heffernan had told the tribunal that all this had happened at a time when serious disagreements had developed between Mr Ben Dunne and his siblings, and he had been removed as chairman of Dunnes Stores.
Since then the company was being run in a "more professional manner", she said. A settlement had been reached with the Revenue Commissioners and the company's tax affairs had been resolved.
She told the tribunal she had never paid any money to a political party, or to any TD or senator. Nor was any decision made that the company should do so.
She described a meeting in July 1993 between herself, her sister Therese and the company's accountant, Mr Irwin.
At this meeting Mr Irwin told her that her brother Ben had made a payment to Mr Haughey.
Asked if she was "stunned" she said: "Very much so. I was actually flabbergasted. I couldn't believe it."
Asked if it was the first she knew of any such payment, she said: "I had heard rumours my brother had made payments to Mr Haughey" and she asked her brother if there was any truth in them. This was at a time when they were working closely together. He just totally denied it, she said.
She said she also mentioned the rumours to Dunnes trustee Mr Noel Fox "in passing". He didn't "pass any comment that she remembered. He didn't deny it, and said something like "Is that so?" The rumours persisted, and she raised the matter again with her brother. At this stage the differences concerning the business had arisen.
"As brother and sister we have healed those differences. I don't want to revive these differences," she said.
She told Mr McCullough she had a "heated argument" with him about the persistence of the rumours that he had given Mr Haughey money. She said she told him at that meeting: "If you don't tell me, I'm going to keep digging". He said, "You can look all you like. You'll never trace them." This meeting took place before the discussion with Mr Irwin.
She did try to trace these alleged payments, but without success. However, she was not involved in that area of business on a day to day basis.
Asked if she had any idea what the purpose of any such payments was, she said she and her brother would have different views about such payments. "I don't make donations to political parties or individuals for anything."
Asked what her brother's views were on such donations, she said: "I didn't really know his views until they started coming out in this tribunal."
She was flabbergasted at the extent of the donations, she said, and felt that if he wanted to make payments to political parties on behalf of the company he would have brought it forward. "I didn't believe it. I didn't believe my brother would give £1 million to anybody."
Mr McCullough said the tribunal had heard a lot about her brother's generosity, and Mr Dunne himself had said this was true of all the Dunnes. "Not to the extent I'm reading this week, sir," she said.
After getting the information about the alleged donations from Mr Irwin, she discussed the matter with her brother, Frank, and said she was going to see Mr Haughey about it. She arranged this meeting about a week later. Asked if she thought Mr Haughey had received this money, she said: "I doubted it very much." Elaborating, she said: "We were getting into heated discussions at this time. He would know this would really annoy me.
Asked why, despite her doubts, she went to the house of the former Taoiseach, she said: "Anyone who I was told had got £1.3 million of Dunnes Stores money I would have gone to meet them."