£50,000 not put in joint account, says Taoiseach

Dail Report: Taoiseach Bertie Ahern referred to the break-up of his marriage when pressed by Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny to say where he had placed £50,000 in savings in the early 1990s.

Mr Ahern said: "I appreciate Deputy Kenny's previous statements that he did not want to go into my separation issues. I have explained that the accounts were in our joint names and when I was going through the separation agreement, I did not put the money into a joint account.

"That is all I did, for the obvious reason that if one is going through a separation, life is not particularly easy. That is all I did. I did no more than that."

Mr Kenny had observed that it was simply incredible that a minister for finance was in a position to put together more than €60,000 in savings in the 1990s.

"Deputy Rabbitte queried where that might have been kept. This matter consumes the public." Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Micheál Martin interjected: "It does not."

Fine Gael's deputy leader Richard Bruton remarked: "The public does not believe what Government members are saying."

Green Party leader Trevor Sargent said there should be no place for bank drafts, drawn on a company account, supporting the lifestyle of a minister for finance.

"Corporate funding has already ruined the careers and legacy of four former ministers, Ray Burke, Pádraig Flynn, Michael Lowry and the late Charles Haughey, as well as the late Liam Lawlor and others.

"As he admits, it has not helped the Taoiseach's career either, although he may have done the State some service by exposing the hypocrisy and the 'power versus principle' issues that the PDs have had to face.

"Perhaps their political oblivion will be one of the Taoiseach's legacies."

Mr Sargent said Mr Ahern had not answered a question which he first put to him in February 1999. This was if Mr Ahern had been the beneficiary of any payment, contribution or gift from any source which, with the benefit of hindsight, he now considered to be unorthodox, unusual or irregular.

Was a gift of £8,000 sterling not unorthodox? Was it not unusual, and was it not irregular? Mr Ahern said the answer was the same as it had been on Tuesday.

Mr Sargent claimed he had not got an answer. "You lied, you misled the Dáil and I ask you to face up to that now."

When Ceann Comhairle Dr Rory O'Hanlon challenged Mr Sargent, the Green Party leader said he would withdraw the word "lie".

Mr Ahern repeated his remarks, made on Tuesday, that he realised that his judgment in accepting help from good and loyal friends and the gift in Manchester, albeit in the context of personal family circumstances, was an error.

Labour leader Pat Rabbitte said that Tánaiste Michael McDowell, "during his brief flirtation when he thought he was Desmond O'Malley", said the one thing that he wanted the Taoiseach to make clear was the identity of the Manchester donors.

Mr Ahern said he had attended many functions and social events in Manchester and to try to piece together everybody who attended each one would be impossible. "I cannot do it." Nobody from Manchester had been appointed to State boards, he added.

Pressed further by Mr Rabbitte, the Taoiseach said he would not be going back over questions that he had already answered.

Michael Collins, one of those who gave him a loan, was not relation of Tim Collins, said Mr Ahern.

"What I said yesterday, with regard to gift tax, has nothing to do with these issues, or any of the issues about which I was asked."

Mr Ahern added that as regards the Manchester gathering, he would give names to the Mahon tribunal in so far as he could identify people.