MAHON TRIBUNAL:STERLING SUMS lodged to the account of former taoiseach Bertie Ahern in 1994 were the proceeds of bets on horses and of income he exchanged with Manchester businessman Tim Kilroe, the Mahon tribunal heard yesterday.
Mr Ahern was replying to questions about lodgements totalling £15,450 which were made to his account and to the accounts of his daughters between March and October 1994.
The lodgements were made by his former secretary to accounts in what was the Irish Permanent Building Society. Mr Ahern had previously told the tribunal that the lodgements in question were Irish sums that were the proceeds of his salary cheques.
Mr Ahern said yesterday he now accepted the sums were sterling.
He said in the early 1990s he had considered investing in an apartment in Salford Quay, Manchester, and was trying to accumulate a deposit in his safe. To achieve this, he had an arrangement with Mr Kilroe to exchange Irish pounds for sterling.
Mr Kilroe was a successful businessman who had founded Aer Arann and owned the Four Seasons Hotel in Manchester, Mr Ahern said, and he was his good friend.
The tribunal had also heard that Mr Kilroe contributed to an £8,000 sterling whip-round for Mr Ahern when he visited Manchester in 1994.
Mr Ahern said the exchanges with Mr Kilroe happened on approximately six occasions between 1990 and 1993 and were in the region of £2,000 to £3,000. The money he gave Mr Kilroe was the proceeds of his salary, he said.
He said he took this money to St Luke’s, his constituency office, and placed it in his safe. When he decided he would not go ahead with the purchase of the Manchester apartment, he lodged the money to his account and to his daughters’ accounts.
Some of the funds he lodged were also the proceeds of winnings he made on horse races, Mr Ahern said.
He said yesterday there was “no contradiction” between his current evidence and the information provided to the tribunal previously. “It is wholly unrealistic to expect anyone to be able to recall the minutiae of their financial affairs after 10 or 14 very busy years,” he said.
He said he had forgotten that he lodged this sterling to his account and thought that he had used it as a “float” for his visits to Manchester and his holidays in England and Scotland, and for sterling bets.
“I did not recall lodging these relatively small sums of sterling to these accounts, and I believed I had not done so,” he said.
He said he still believed the lodgements were the proceeds of his salary.
“The notion that I would . . . seek to conceal sterling lodgements is farcical,” he said.
“It is the height of absurdity to suggest . . . I knowingly gave misleading answers in respect of these lodgements. That is unfair, untrue and groundless.”
He told the tribunal that he lodged a further £8,000 in sterling to his daughters’ accounts in 1996.
These were the proceeds of successful horse-racing ventures in the UK, counsel for the tribunal, Des O’Neill, said.
“Yes, one lodgement,” Mr Ahern said.
Mr O’Neill asked Mr Ahern if he had forgotten about saving the sterling or if he was “at all times aware” that he had been saving sterling in his safe, but didn’t consider it was material to the tribunal’s inquiry.
“I had recalled that I had sterling and I think in previous occasions I’ve said that I had sterling,” Mr Ahern said. “What I did not think that I ever lodged that sterling. I thought I had used that sterling over the years back and forward to Manchester – I had some holidays in England.”
