Ahern quizzed over intention to repay £30,000

Sterling purchase:Taoiseach Bertie Ahern told the Mahon tribunal yesterday he and businessman Michael Wall and former partner Celia Larkin "weren't some legal entity, watching every tap".

He accused tribunal counsel Des O'Neill SC of "putting a formality into the relationships that was never there".

Mr Ahern was being quizzed in relation to his purchase of stg£30,000 in early 1995.

The tribunal had heard that Mr Wall was to purchase a house in Beresford, Drumcondra, and Mr Ahern would rent it from him with an option to buy.

Mr Wall had given approximately stg£30,000 to Mr Ahern in December 1994, which was lodged by Celia Larkin to an account in her name, to pay for refurbishment work on the house.

Mr Ahern said he bought the stg£30,000 to repay Mr Wall.

Mr O'Neill said that all of the evidence he had given so far was that he was a conduit for the money given by Mr Wall, but that if he felt he had to pay it back, it meant he regarded it as a contribution, and that conflicted with his evidence.

Mr Ahern said he did not see a contradiction. "You're trying to say the money Mr Wall gave into the account was for me; it wasn't for me," he said.

"You cannot give back to somebody a contribution if that person never made a contribution," Mr O'Neill said.

"If I pulled out of the arrangement . . . and Celia Larkin held on to the £30,000 that was robbing his money," Mr Ahern replied.

He added that the tribunal was talking about something he had contemplated but that had never actually happened.

The tribunal heard that the stg£30,000 was bought with part of a IR£50,000 cash withdrawal originally owned by Mr Ahern but lodged in a second account of Ms Larkin. Mr Ahern said he couldn't remember making the purchase; he may have carried out the transaction himself or someone may have done it for him, he said.

Mr O'Neill queried why Mr Ahern had decided to pay the money back out of his £50,000 instead of removing it from the account into which it was deposited - Ms Larkin's first account.

"The fact that it came out of one of the accounts in her name rather than the other account, made absolutely no difference - she wasn't a stranger," Mr Ahern said.

Tribunal chairman Judge Alan Mahon said if Mr Ahern was of the view to return the £30,000 and the only purpose for the £30,000 in the account in Ms Larkin's name was for Mr Wall's expenditure on the house, the obvious view would be to go to that account and take it out.

"I have no problem about that if Mr Wall wasn't a very good personal friend of mine and if Celia Larkin wasn't my partner," Mr Ahern said.

He said if he had returned the money, Mr Wall wouldn't have cared which account it came from.

Mr Ahern's opening statement, delivered to the tribunal last Thursday, also came under scrutiny yesterday.

In that statement, Mr Ahern had said he was going to give back the sterling because he was thinking of pulling out of the house deal. This was the first time the tribunal heard Mr Ahern was thinking of pulling out of the house deal. He had previously said he was giving back the money because he was very busy and wanted Mr Wall to take charge of all of the refurbishment work on Beresford.

Tribunal judge Mary Faherty said Mr Ahern's explanations were "polar opposites" and asked why he hadn't mentioned pulling out of the house deal before.

Counsel for Mr Ahern Conor Maguire intervened and pointed out that he had mentioned that he considered pulling out in a press statement at the time of the general election.

Mr O'Neill asked why he had not mentioned it during an interview with the tribunal last April.

"When all of this was getting a lot of air time last summer, people pointed out to me that I did actually go look at houses . . . which I didn't really recollect," Mr Ahern said.

He said he was considering buying a different house in Beresford or on Griffith Avenue and this was pointed out to him by a number of auctioneers.

"I wouldn't have raised the issue only for that . . maybe I created confusion, I'm sorry if I did that," he said.