Tribunal trying to stitch me up - Ahern

Timing of loan:Taoiseach Bertie Ahern yesterday accused the tribunal of trying to "stitch him up", after counsel suggested he might have arranged a loan with his bank and then "acquired" the money from his friends to cover it.

The tribunal was given details of a loan of over £19,000, taken out by Mr Ahern at AIB bank on O'Connell Street, which he said was to cover legal expenses associated with his marital separation and to pay for his wife's car loan.

There was no documentation for the loan and Mr Ahern did not begin to make repayments on it until July 1995, the tribunal heard.

Counsel for the tribunal, Des O'Neill SC, questioned Mr Ahern about the timing of the loan and the opening of a special savings account. Mr Ahern had maintained that the loan was taken out on December 23rd, 1993.

However, Mr O'Neill argued there was a possibility it was taken out on December 14th.

He said Mr Ahern could have gone to the bank on December 14th to borrow money and the bank offered him a loan on condition that he participate in a "back-to-back arrangement". The arrangement meant that Mr Ahern would deposit the same amount he wanted to borrow, plus interest for 18 months, amounting to about £20,000.

"You do not have that money on the 14th but you set about acquiring that money between the 14th and the 23rd," Mr O'Neill suggested. "On the 23rd, you return with the money . . . a total of £22,000."

Mr Ahern said the whole scenario was unbelievable. "I really, really don't believe that you or anyone else would put that together, other than trying to set me up and stitch me up," he said.

"I didn't know what you were coming at. But to think that AIB would get in to such a conspiracy with me to put such a set of convoluted circumstances . . ."

He said that on December 21st, he was asked to pay bills before Christmas and he got a loan to do that. He opened up a current account and a savings account, into which he later lodged some of the £22,500 dig-out given to him at Christmas by his friends.

He asked the chairman what the matter had to do with the central allegation, that he had been paid £80,000 by Cork developer Owen O'Callaghan.

Counsel for Mr Ahern, Conor Maguire SC, read a letter written to the tribunal on December 5th, which said the tribunal should give Mr Ahern advance notice if it intended to put any hypothesis to him on the stand.

The tribunal's written reply was that they were not seeking to advance any hypothesis, Mr Maguire said, yet they had just produced an "elaborate" and "fanciful" one. "This is clearly a breach of the Taoiseach's constitutional right to fair procedures."

However, Judge Alan Mahon said the tribunal was entitled to suggest alternatives. "It's a matter for Mr Ahern to reject that scenario as being impossible or not realistic," he said.