Liquidator says Alan Hynes's explanation "difficult to follow”

Liquidator Neil Hughes described as "difficult to follow" an explanation drafted by Wexford accountant Alan Hynes as to what happened to €3.1 million of the €18 million investors put into failed property venture Tam plc.

Mr Hynes drafted the document for a disciplinary tribunal of the Chartered Accountants Regulatory Board after the chairman of the tribunal last month said he found Mr Hynes’s evidence confusing.

Mr Hynes gave evidence about the document to the tribunal earlier this week but the details of Mr Hughes’s written response, also requested by the tribunal, were not disclosed.

Mr Hughes, managing partner with Hughes Blake, is the liquidator of Tam and has given the tribunal a list of 13 investors whose funds, he says, did not reach Tam.

Mr Hughes said he was not sure he could follow Mr Hynes’s analysis and that it was a mix of written commentary and accounting figures that did not balance.

“I wish to reiterate my view that the very fact that we are all trying to decipher and ascertain in retrospect what any of this myriad of payments and transactions (let alone all of them) were about (or how they should be accounted for) proves, if any proof were needed, that there has been no proper and comprehensible record and accounting for same.”

'Serious questions'
At the very least, Mr Hughes said, "this gives rise to serious questions as to why it has been so difficult to get any clarity on so many aspects of these investments". He said it was his view the lack of clarity and creation of widespread confusion was deliberate.

In the collapse of Tam, 80 investors, up to half of whom may have been clients of Mr Hynes’s accountancy practice, Hynes & Co, lost €18 million. The venture had bank debts of about €50 million.

The tribunal is investigating complaints against Mr Hynes in relation to Tam and other ventures.

At the outset of his document Mr Hynes cited caveats covering his role in Tam and his access to documents, which he said limited his ability to deal with the queries raised by the liquidator.

Mr Hughes said he did not believe Mr Hynes had “any legitimate basis whatsoever for these purported caveats”.