Tribunal to hear new details of Dunnes payments

THE Dunnes payments tribunal, which resumes today in Dublin Castle, will hear fresh details of what happened to the £1.3 million which Mr Ben Dunne said he paid to Mr Charles Haughey but which Mr Haughey has said, in writing, that he never received.

An outline of the progress made in this regard by the tribunal since it adjourned in April will be made by counsel for the tribunal this morning. This will be followed by legal argument over whether Mr Noel Smyth, solicitor to Mr Ben Dunne, should give evidence to the tribunal about conversations he had with Mr Haughey relating to the £1.3 million.

Legal argument over this issue may take two days. Should Mr Justice McCracken rule that Mr Smyth must reveal details of the conversations, this could be appealed to the High Court, or even to the Supreme Court, by the legal team representing Mr Haughey.

Between Wednesday and Friday, the tribunal is scheduled to deal with matters relating to Mr Michael Lowry, his business dealings with Mr Dunne and Dunnes Stores, and his involvement in fundraising for Fine Gael.

The tribunal has already heard that Mr Lowry was present at the time of or was otherwise involved in, a number of the payments made by Mr Dunne to Fine Gael politicians, including the party leader, Mr John Bruton. The tribunal will also hear evidence from the Westmeath TD, Mr Paul McGrath, about comments made to him by Mr Lowry in relation to contributions by Dunnes to the party.

Mr Lowry's appearance at the tribunal is likely to be very embarrassing for Fine Gael.

After dealing with the Lowry evidence, the tribunal intends to return to the issue of the money trail left by the £1.3 million. Irish bankers who can assist the tribunal on this will be called. Their testimony may comprise the bulk of the evidence to be heard over the coming month. It may also be the most interesting evidence.

When the tribunal adjourned in April, it had heard that payments by Mr Dunne totalling £1.1 million ended up in an account in the Guinness & Mahon bank in Ireland. The account belonged to a Cayman Islands bank Ansbacher Ltd.

A further group of payments, totalling £210,000 and made up of three bank drafts, ended up in an Ansbacher account in the Irish Intercontinental Bank. Mr Dunne has said he personally handed these bank drafts to Mr Haughey.

The tribunal has been trying to follow the movement of this money from these two accounts to see whether the trail supports the evidence given by Mr Dunne. It is understood that the tribunal team has managed to track the money on a number of steps from the Ansbacher accounts in the two Dublin banks.

Evidence was taken in London from bankers there during the adjournment and the transcripts of these incamera hearings will be delivered to the tribunal during the current sitting. The tribunal has also had access to confidential banking and personal documents linked to the matters under investigation.

It is understood that the money trail has been followed from off shore controlled accounts. The tribunal has been trying to pick up the money trail on the other side, so to speak, of the Cayman Islands involvement, so that an inference could be made as to what occurred when the money was under the control of the Cayman Islands bank. The progress which has been made means the evidence of bankers on the Cayman Islands may not now be as crucial to the tribunal's deliberations as bad hitherto been thought, but it is also understood that the complete picture of what happened to the £1.3 million may never be known without evidence from the Cayman Islands.

A decision of the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands as to whether the tribunal may take evidence from bankers there is still awaited.

Mr Justice McCracken, the sole member of the tribunal, Mr Denis McCullough SC, Mr Michael Collins SC, and the tribunal solicitor, Mr John Lawless, travelled to the Cayman Islands in May to make an application there. The application was opposed by Mr John Furze, a Cayman Islands based former director of Ansbacher, in whose name a number of the payments from Mr Dunne were made.

It is possible that whatever ruling is made by the Cayman Islands court will be appealed either by the tribunal or Mr Furze. In this event, the tribunal could be delayed for a number of months.

The issue then remains as to when the tribunal will call Mr Haughey. The bulk of the evidence which is being collected by the tribunal relates to the £1.3 million. Irrespective of developments in the Cayman Islands, the tribunal may decide to call Mr Haughey towards the end of July and deal with the matters already heard which concern him. Matters which might subsequently arise in the Cayman Islands could then be put to him later.