Treasurer did not know how much was in three accounts

THE TREASURER of Fianna Fáil’s Dublin Central constituency organisation said yesterday he did not know how much money there was in three accounts associated with St Luke’s.

Liam Cooper, who is also chairman of Bertie Ahern’s local cumann, O’Donovan Rossa, said the cumann always had “the one bank account” which was used to meet ongoing expenses.

He said at best, the amounts passing through that account were in the hundreds.

He told Henry Murphy SC, for the tribunal, that he was aware of an account opened by St Luke’s house committee in 1988, which was named CODR. It was addressed to the secretary at 146 Drumcondra Road, over Fagan’s pub.

CODR stood for Cumann O’Donovan Rossa, but was entirely separate from the cumann. “O’Donovan Rossa is a very famous name as a patriot,” he said, explaining how the name came about.

He could understand the confusion caused by the CODR account being called the same as the cumann, while not being under its control. “So you have some sympathy for me?” Mr Murphy asked.

Mr Cooper said the house committee opened the CODR account because they decided they would run an annual dinner to keep St Luke’s up and running. The house committee members took it upon themselves to maintain St Luke’s, he said. “They were all extremely good people, in my estimation.”

He was aware of the B/T account, opened in 1989 by Tim Collins, a trustee of St Luke’s, and he was aware of the No 1 constituency account, opened in 1983 by Mr Ahern and Dublin Port Company chairman and St Luke’s trustee, Joe Burke.

He initially told Mr Murphy that he would have asked one of the trustees about the three accounts before presenting his treasurer’s report to the constituency annual general meeting. “I might say for example to Tim Collins, ‘What’s the story with the B/T account?’ . . . and he would say ‘Grand, it hasn’t been touched’ or whatever, and I’d say ‘That’s grand’.”

Tribunal chairman Judge Alan Mahon asked him if he knew these accounts contained balances in the thousands.

“Not really, now that I think of it,” Mr Cooper said. “All I know is the house committee seemed to supply us on an ongoing basis with everything you needed to run the organisation . . . we had no need to query anything because everything went extremely well.”

Mr Murphy asked him why money collected was not simply lodged to the official account instead of the other accounts. “It was all done very respectably,” Mr Cooper said. “People who are proactive just go and do it. There was no other reason, no underhandedness attached to it, this was purely volunteerism at its best.”