Yesterday, for some reason not immediately clear, Mr Charles Haughey faltered in his evidence concerning his knowledge of his financial affairs.
The tribunal has moved on from dealing with Mr Haughey's overdraft with AIB during the 1970s and the settlement of that £1.14 million debt in January/ February 1980.
It is now dealing with accounts held in Mr Haughey's name in Guinness & Mahon bank (G & M). It seems that in the mid-1970s an account was opened and used, at least in part, for transactions linked to the Haughey holiday home on Inishvickillane island, Co Kerry, though little has yet been heard about this account.
A further account was opened in G & M in 1979 and during the 1980s a further three accounts were opened. Last week, when all these G& M accounts were first mentioned, Mr Haughey said he had had no knowledge of them until he had been told of their existence by the Moriarty tribunal. He repeated this on Monday and for most of yesterday morning he continued in this vein.
The import of his evidence was that, following the closure of his accounts with AIB in early 1980, he did not know of the existence of any bank account in his name. He was Taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fail, lived in a Gandon mansion he could not afford, and had no bank account.
Furthermore, he at times took out large loans, from ACCBank and Northern Bank Financial Corporation (NBFC), and signed the associated documentation, but did not know if he had a bank account to lodge these monies to. All these matters were handled by the late Mr Des Traynor.
An account in G & M in his name was opened with a lodgement of £15,000 on February 13th, 1979. His evidence is he has no idea where this money came from. Seven days later £18,750 was lodged and three days later again £20,000. The following month more than £6,000 was lodged in two separate lodgements. In September £35,000 was lodged and in October £10,000. The total was more than £100,000 and Mr Haughey's evidence is that he does not know where this money came from.
During 1979, when Mr Haughey was coming under pressure from AIB, he told his bank manager he had no other accounts part from the ones at AIB. This was untrue.
It was when Mr John Coughlan SC, for the tribunal, put it to him that he gave this false account to AIB because he himself, Mr Haughey, had been misled by the late Mr Traynor, that Mr Haughey faltered in his evidence.
He said he might have known of the G & M account opened in 1979 and forgotten about it subsequently. He was not sure, although he leaned towards believing he had never known of the account's existence.
Little information was given about where the money flowing into the G &M account in 1979 was going, although over the subsequent years it seems the account was used to fund Mr Haughey's bill-paying service.
The other lodgements to the account were: in 1980, £190,000, being loans from ACCBank and NBFC; in 1981, £47,000; in 1982, £243,000, £75,000 of which was an ACCBank loan; in 1983, £330,000, £200,000 which may have come from a Cayman Islands loan; 1984, £5,000; 1985, £20,000; and 1987, £285,000. The account was in overdraft much of the time.
The 1987 lodgement, which cleared the account, was a cheque made out to "Tripleplan" which came from Dunne Stores.
The total lodged to the account, including funds from loans, is about £1.2 million and constitutes in the main the money spent by Mr Haughey during his years in opposition in the 1980s. The Tripleplan cheque marks his return to the office of Taoiseach.
A lodgement in January 1983 of £200,000 came from the Ansbacher deposits.