Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is to continue his testimony to the Mahon tribunal on Monday afternoon, it has been confirmed.
Mr Ahern will take the stand at 2.00pm for the fourth day of his examination by counsel for the tribunal.
He was examined last Thursday and Friday and again yesterday on the circumstances of four particular lodgements to accounts in his name or in the name of his former partner Celia Larkin in the 1990s when he was minister for finance.
The four lodgements amounted to about £85,000 at the time. The transactions were all preceded by sterling transactions but the Taoiseach did not tell the tribunal this until he was interviewed earlier this year. His accountant had prepared a report for the tribunal in April 2006 with a chart outlining the various lodgements but did not mention the sterling transactions.
An amount of £30,000 sterling, which the Taoiseach has told the tribunal he bought in early 1995, is also being investigated. The tribunal has not been able to find any record of such a large purchase of sterling in banking records at that time.
Mr Ahern told the tribunal yesterday he bought the £30,000 sterling out of £50,000 withdrawn in cash from his account in January 1995. He intended to return it to the Manchester-based businessman Michael Wall, who was buying a house in Dublin that the Taoiseach had agreed to rent and renovate.
Mr Wall gave the Taoiseach about £28,000 sterling in cash in December 1994 and told the tribunal he intended that it be used for the renovations, even though he had only paid a £3,000 booking deposit on the house in the same week.
The Taoiseach told the tribunal this week he had changed his mind about the decision to rent the house after Fianna Fáil was "chucked out of government unceremoniously" in December 1994. The urgency with which he felt he needed to find a house had diminished at that point, he said.
However, he said he never "implemented" that change of mind and proceeded with the original agreement with Mr Wall.
In the case of one of the transactions being investigated by the tribunal, Mr Ahern insists it was the result of a lodgement of the sterling handed to him by Mr Wall.
However, the tribunal believes the amount is the exact equivalent of $45,000 dollars based on one of the exchange rates in operation on that day. Mr Ahern says he was never involved in a dollar transaction and that he has engaged a currency expert to prove the tribunal's theory is incorrect. He first told the tribunal this on Thursday of last week when he made a lengthy statement prior to beginning his testimony.
It is not yet known if Mr Ahern's legal team will introduce this expert opinion on Monday but it is likely that counsel for the tribunal Des O'Neill SC will require at least several hours to conclude his examination.