Foley held on to £50,000 for 4 years

Mr Denis Foley held £50,000 in bank drafts in his home for four years before giving the money to the Revenue Commissioners less than two months ago, the Moriarty tribunal heard yesterday.

The money came from Mr Foley's offshore account. He was handed the £50,000 in cash in a brown envelope by the former Guinness & Mahon accountant, Mr Padraig Collery, at a meeting in Jurys Hotel in August 1995.

Mr Foley then converted the money into drafts and kept the drafts in his home until December 1999, when he handed them to the Revenue Commissioners.

Mr Foley became concerned about his £50,000 investment after Des Traynor's death in May 1994 because he wasn't receiving statements, so he arranged to get the money from Mr Traynor's successor, Mr Collery, in Jurys Hotel in August 1995. After the meeting, Mr Foley took the £50,000 to Tralee, where he converted it into two bank drafts.

He said he had wanted to settle with the Revenue Commissioners since his first investment matured. He went to Mr Traynor in 1991 and told him: "I'd be anxious to close my account and fix up my affairs with the Revenue."

According to Mr Foley, Mr Traynor replied "Look, you're going to lose a lot of money like that". Mr Foley said that as a result he allowed his investment to be locked in for a second 10-year period.

Mr Foley said his accountant had told him in later years that he would have to obtain statements for his offshore accounts if he were to settle with the Revenue. He said he didn't succeed in getting those statements from Mr Collery until May 1999.

Mr Foley also told the Tribunal of an ill-fated investment he made in the Central Hotel in Ballybunion in 1972. Mr Foley had a 25 per cent interest in the hotel and became a director of Central Tourist Holdings.

After a number of years "the business was not going so well" and the premises was sold in 1986. There were insufficient funds to discharge the creditors.

Haughey Boland, acting for Central Tourist Holdings, reached a settlement with the Revenue and with Guinness & Mahon, who had loaned the company money. The directors had to pay from their own funds for the settlement.

He had understood that a loan granted to the company in June 1982 by Guinness & Mahon was a "straightforward" one. Over £42,000 was made from the sale of the hotel and lodged to an account opened in the name of his company in Bank of Ireland Listowel by a solicitor.

A cheque was drawn on the account made payable to Guinness & Mahon and signed by Mr Foley and Mr John Byrne. The cheque was subsequently credited by Mr Traynor to a Guinness & Mahon account which he used to channel Ansbacher funds.

Mr Foley said he did not know about the account. Nor did he know that the loan was backed by a deposit in Guinness & Mahon Cayman Trust.