Bonus cheques made out to cash and ranging in value between £3,000 and £7,000 were handed out by Mr Ben Dunne to Dunnes Stores executives at the end of each financial year, the Moriarty tribunal was told yesterday.
They were also given to Mr Noel Fox and Mr Frank Bowen, senior members, respectively, of Oliver Freaney & Co and Deloitte & Touche, the companies which audited the Dunnes accounts.
Mr Dunne said he treated the cheques, up to 40 of which were written each year, "like my own pound notes". He said he believed they were put down in the company accounts as expenses.
Counsel for Dunnes Stores, Mr Richard Law-Nesbitt SC, said the practice had since stopped and in 1989 there was a full disclosure and "the Revenue has been paid full taxes due arising out of those matters".
Mr Dunne was giving evidence about six Dunnes Stores cheques made out to "bearer", which had been credited to a Guinness & Mahon bank account called Amiens, from which payments were made to Mr Charles Haughey. The six cheques drawn from Dunnes Stores accounts ranged from £4,600 to £6,600.
Mr Dunne said between 30 to 40 "bearer" cheques would be brought to him yearly by Mr Noel Fox or Mr Frank Bowen, who were both Dunnes trustees.
"When I would get them, I believe I signed them all. But I certainly signed some, and I would give some of them to whoever brought them to me, either Noel Fox or Frank Bowen. I would keep some for my own personal self and I would use others for executives in the business."
Mr Jerry Healy SC, counsel for the tribunal, asked whether they were regarded as payment of fees "or anything like that?"
Mr Dunne replied: "Definitely not my understanding, no". He accepted the cheques were used instead as bonuses or as a thank-you for extra effort. A maximum of 25 people in Dunnes Stores would receive such bonuses.
All "bearer", or cash, cheques were drawn from Dunnes Stores No 2 accounts, of which there was one for each branch. Mr Dunne said the chequebooks for these accounts were stored in "an old leather briefcase" in his Dublin office.
He said cheque books may also have been kept by Mr Bowen, who would have written cheques for stores in Munster and for stores audited by Deloitte & Touche, excluding Northern Ireland.
Of the cheques for the No 2 accounts, he said: "I would have signed them only yearly with the word `bearer' ". Mr Bowen and Mr Fox were the only people who brought "bearer" cheques to him.
He added he would never get the cheques all together. "Mr Fox would come to me and Mr Bowen would give me some but it wouldn't be the two walk into the office together."
Mr Dunne said he was the only person who signed the cheques as "they only became live if I signed them". He added that Mr Fox, who was a non-auditing partner with Oliver Freaney & Co, "would have no say over who the cheques would go to."
He said the practice took place for "years and years and years". It was "passed on from my father's days and I suppose, as my father passed on and I took over, then they came to me".
He said the cheque amounts would normally range between £3,000 to £6,000 - there was no definite pattern. Rather it was like measuring "an 18-inch putt". It "could be anything from 15 inches to two foot".
He said the six Amiens cheques appeared to have been written just before the close of the financial year ending January 31st, 1987.
All the cheques were made out to "bearer" and dated January 28th, 1987. Mr Dunne said that, looking at the handwriting on the cheques, he could see Mr Fox had filled in the amounts in words. However, Mr Dunne had filled in the figures and had signed the cheques.
He admitted this was unusual but said "these were unusual cheques". He said he did not know whether he had put in the amounts first or Mr Fox.
He was shown that three of the cheques, totalling £15,400, were lodged in the Amiens account on February 2nd, 1987, and the other three, totalling £16,800, were lodged on February 4th.
He said only a few "key men" within Dunnes Stores would have received three cheques at one time. "I certainly can't remember giving six to anyone . . . except to myself." He said he was certain he did not lodge any of the cheques in the Guinness & Mahon account.
Asked how the "bearer" cheques were treated in the company accounts, Mr Dunne replied: "I would say it was in the expenses of the company . . . That's something the auditors would know."
He kept no written record of the people to whom he paid the cheques. "Even though it was the company's money, they were like my own pound notes," he said.
Asked again to whom the cash would have been given, Mr Dunne said: "The cheques would have been given to me, executives in Dunnes Stores, and I certainly recall giving some to Noel Fox and to Frank Bowen."
Later Mr Fox confirmed the handwriting on the six cheques was his own. However, he could not recall filling them out or being asked to do so.
He said he thought what happened with the six cheques "was that Mr Dunne put in the amount and signed the cheque and, whilst he was doing that to the next cheque, he asked me to make out the original cheque to bearer or cash or whatever and I would have handed them back to him".
Mr Fox said he would not normally have written "bearer" cheques for Mr Dunne and would be "amazed" if there was any other occasion than that one.
