A whole chapter of the report of the Dunnes Stores payments tribunal headed by Mr Justice McCracken is devoted exclusively to the topic "Offence by Mr Charles Haughey".
Chapter 10 sets out the former Taoiseach's dealings with the tribunal over a period of four months up to and including Mr Haughey's admission on July 15th last year: "I accept that I have not co-operated with this tribunal in a manner which would have been expected of me. I deeply regret that I have allowed this situation to arise".
On March 3rd, 1997, a letter was sent by the tribunal registrar to every person who was known to have been a member of either House of the Oireachtas between January 1st, 1986, and December 31st, 1996, including Mr Charles Haughey.
Mr Haughey replied by a letter dated March 7th denying that he or any connected person or relative of his, as defined in the Ethics in Public Office Act, 1995, received any payment in cash or in kind of the nature referred to in the terms of reference of the tribunal, other than contributions to Mrs Maureen Haughey, Mr Ciaran Haughey, Father Eoghan Haughey and Mr Sean Haughey TD.
This letter also enclosed correspondence between Matheson Ormsby Prentice, solicitors to the Dunnes Stores Group, and Mr Charles Haughey in November and December 1994, in which he specifically denied the receipt of any monies from Mr Ben Dunne.
The tribunal solicitor wrote to Mr Haughey again on March 27th, enclosing an extract from Mr Dunne's original statement referring to alleged payments to Mr Haughey and raising certain queries about possible debts of Mr Haughey which might have been discharged out of these payments. Mr Haughey was also asked to furnish a statement about the transactions outlined by Mr Dunne.
A reminder was sent on April 2nd and a reply was received from Mr Haughey dated April 3rd, which stated: "It is suggested that the accompanying documents support the said allegations and with respect to the tribunal I venture to suggest that a careful perusal of these documents on their own does not corroborate the allegations being made against me".
The tribunal solicitor replied the same day: "In your letter, you refer to allegations being made against you and to the fact that evidence may be adduced against you. I should make it clear that there is no allegation being made by any person to date that in receiving the money in question (either directly or indirectly) you are guilty of any wrongdoing or any breach of law."
After some correspondence and the making of an order for discovery against Mr Haughey, an affidavit of discovery sworn by him was sent to the tribunal on April 18th. This affidavit disclosed the correspondence with Matheson Ormbsy Prentice in 1994.
On April 19th the tribunal solicitor again wrote to Mr Haughey requesting the information sought in the letter of March 27th. This was acknowledged by Mr Haughey in a letter dated April 21st, in which he said it was his intention to co-operate with the tribunal at all times in accordance with his legal obligations. However, none of the information requested was furnished.
On April 25th Mr Dunne's solicitor, Mr Noel Smyth, raised a legal question as to the admissibility of certain evidence proposed to be given by him of conversations with Mr Haughey. On April 28th Mr Haughey was granted limited legal representation to deal with the issue.
On April 29th the tribunal solicitor wrote to Mr Haughey's solicitors asking if he would wish to avail of this opportunity to assist the tribunal, repeating the requests for information contained in the letter of March 27th. No reply was received to that letter.
On May 15th the tribunal solicitor again wrote to Mr Haughey requesting the information from him which had originally been sought on March 27th. Again no such information was furnished.
In the meantime, the tribunal had furnished Mr Haughey with all witnesses' statements, and documents obtained by the tribunal which related to him. The lengthy correspondence continued without any information being given by Mr Haughey and still apparently on the basis of his denial in his letter of March 7th of the receipt of any monies.
"It is not necessary in this report to set out this entire correspondence in detail; it is sufficient to say that it was most unhelpful and very time-consuming for the staff of the tribunal to deal with", Mr Justice McCracken stated in his report.
On June 30th Mr Haughey was granted full legal representation at the tribunal, and his counsel said he would furnish a statement acknowledging that as a matter of probability £1.3 million was paid into accounts managed by Mr Desmond Traynor on his behalf. But he still denied that he had received three bank drafts personally. The statement was furnished on July 7th.
On July 9th Mr Haughey's counsel read a further statement in which Mr Haughey acknowledged that he had personally received three bank drafts from Mr Ben Dunne.
When he gave evidence on July 15th Mr Haughey read yet another statement to the tribunal. He was asked by counsel for the tribunal:
"And would you accept now, Mr Haughey, that you sat outside the tribunal in Abbeville waiting to see whether or not the tribunal would gather sufficient evidence to make it incumbent upon you to make a statement. Would that he a fair summation?"
Mr Haughey replied: "Well, it could be, but I suppose basically I was looking at the fact of the inevitable disclosure". He further conceded that it was not until the tribunal had presented the evidence to him before June 30th that he decided to make a statement.
Mr Justice McCracken concluded Chapter 10 of his report by announcing that he was referring the papers in the matter to the DPP for a decision as to whether there should be a prosecution.