Bertie's big dream and the private fund-raising

As a sad, middle-aged fantasist with an irrational and increasingly unrewarded devotion to Nottingham Forest, I know only too well that sport can make men who should know better behave very stupidly indeed. In my case, however, there are at least two mitigating factors. I am not the Taoiseach and I don't let sporting fantasies get in the way of my work. Bertie Ahern, on the other hand, has no such excuse. His desire to leave behind a personal monument in the shape of a field of dreams may have a certain boyish charm but, in at least one respect, he has allowed it to cloud his better judgment.

The problem is not necessarily with the proposed national stadium itself and its viability, a question which has been debated in detail by people with far more knowledge of these things than myself. It is, rather, with the one aspect of the stadium plans which everyone seems to like. Bertie's dream is to be financed with £230 million of public money, but there is also to be a £50 million contribution from the professional gambler, racehorse owner, financial wizard and tax exile, J.P. McManus.

Without in any way questioning the altruistic motives for this extraordinary donation, there are good reasons to think hard about this last aspect of Bertie's personal monument. However churlish it may seem to question such generosity, there ought to be reflection on whether it is really a good idea for the Taoiseach to associate himself and the State with J.P. McManus in this way. If it's wrong for a minister to accept a holiday from a businessman, can it be right for a Taoiseach, on behalf of the State, to accept a slice of a stadium from a businessman?

Should a State which is trying to establish clear lines of separation between business and politics allow a private individual to fund the Taoiseach's personal fantasies? Especially when that individual, according to a High Court inspector, made some of his vast wealth in the deal which did most to raise alarm about golden circles in the Haughey era, the sale in 1989 of the Johnston Mooney & O'Brien site in Ballsbridge to a company controlled by Dermot Desmond for £4 million and its resale to the publicly-owned Bord Telecom a few months later for £9.4 million?

THE company at the heart of the deal was Chestvale, which was a subsidiary of a company called United Property Holdings. One of the people with an apparent share in UPH was a Joseph Lewis, with an ad dress on the Cayman Islands.

His name, according to the report of the High Court inspector, John Glackin, "was used under the reference L in discussions about the offshore tax basis of the transaction in September 1989". But the inspector found it impossible to get any serious response to his queries from this Joseph Lewis, and he concluded that Joseph Lewis did not in fact own the shares in UPH and was really a front for "some other person".

The inspector asked J.P. McManus if he was that person. He replied that he was not. He admitted that Dermot Desmond had approached him about the site and "mentioned the idea of having a luxury apartment in Ballsbridge". He replied, he said, "that he would seriously consider it", but he was "surprised" to learn that Dermot Desmond has described him to various banks as a partner in the deal.

"Finally he denied that he ever gave a loan to UPH or to Mr Desmond . . . to finance any investment they may have made in the JMOB site or that he gave any loan that was directly or even indirectly related to the JMOB site." The inspector did not believe these denials. He concluded, firstly, that J.P. McManus was the "other person" to whom the shares in UPH ostensibly held by Joseph Lewis actually belonged.

"I find," he concluded, "that Mr Lewis is holding the shares in UPH as nominee or in trust for Mr McManus." He made this finding on the basis of three facts. One was that Dermot Desmond, "a particularly close personal friend" of Mr McManus, informed the Ulster Bank, with whom he was dealing in relation to the Balls bridge site, that J.P. McManus was a shareholder in UPH. Another was that Bank of Ireland was told around the same time that "there was some overlap" between the shareholders of UPH and both Dermot Desmond and J.P. McManus, and the third had to do with the ownership of an account in Allied Irish Bank in Jersey in the name of J.& N. McMahon.

This account was a key part of the mo ney trail in the whole complex saga. Two transactions which played an important part in the deal went through it. One was a payment from the account of $1,500,000 in December 1989, the other was the return of the same sum to the account after the sale of the site had been completed in July 1990. So, the inspector reasoned, "the real person who controlled the J.& N. McMahon account was a person who was financially interested in the success or failure of the companies" which profited from the deal.

AIB would not tell the inspector who J. & N. McMahon were because "their client would not authorise them to do so", but, with good detective work, the inspector found that AIB held accounts in London in the name of John and Noreen McMahon, and that the manager of the London branch had written to his counterpart in the Channel Islands about a $1,500,000 transaction by "our mutual client" in December 1989. The sole authorised signatory of these London accounts was none other than J.P. McManus.

So the inspector found that J.P. McManus was "a true person interested in the success or failure of Chestvale", the company that made a killing at the expense of the public. The people was actually benefited, he concluded, were J.P. McManus and Dermot Desmond alone.

In return for his $1,500,000 investment, "Mr Desmond did promise `a reward' and did give £500,000 to Mr McManus out of the proceeds of the sale of the JMOB site". This £500,000, he found, was withdrawn in cash by Dermot Desmond from the TSB in Grafton Street in July 1990 and given to J.P. McManus.

That whole era of offshore companies, bank accounts in false names and huge wads of cash floating around the streets of Dublin is currently under scrutiny. We are learning more every day about the very good reasons for politicians, especially those who were close to Charles Haughey, to keep their distance from the inhabitants of this world. Even sad, middle-aged fantasists stupefied by a passion for sport should be able to see that the time for accepting the generous gestures of such people is long gone.