Des O'Neill and Bertie Ahern.
Des O'Neill"...In the case of Mr O'Connor, who has no connection good, bad or indifferent with the tribunal, this is a witness who says that he was not a personal friend of yours to the extent that he could discuss your family affairs. That he was not a person to whom a request was made to make a dig-out towards your legal costs, that he did not make any payment towards your legal costs. And he offers evidence in an entirely different stream, do you understand?
Bertie Ahern:Yes, yes,
Des O'Neill:Yes. So there is evidence which the tribunal is going to have to evaluate?
Bertie Ahern:Yes.
Des O'Neill:Of its task as to what exactly is happening?
Bertie Ahern:Yes.
Des O'Neill:Because if it is the case that Mr O'Connor's account of events is correct and I am putting to you that it follows that the account that a number of your friends including him, had a whip-round and produced money for you cannot be true, do you understand?
Bertie Ahern:Yeah.
Following some objections by counsel for the Taoiseach, Mr Conor Maguire SC, to the nature of the questioning, and a response from the Tribunal chairman, Mr Ahern resumed his answer
Bertie Ahern:Mr O'Neill, I see it entirely different, if I can listen to your questions but I see it totally different. Your theory is that if Mr O'Connor's correct, I didn't get any of the money because he didn't give me the £5,000. I see it totally different. I think what you have done for me in this case, Mr O'Neill, is actually very helpful.
Des O'Neill:I hope so.
Bertie Ahern:I appreciate it and I genuinely mean that because when people outside are arguing and I did say it yesterday, that you tried to stitch me up, but that was when we were arguing about another hypothesis. I'm not arguing that today.
Des O'Neill:Yes.
Bertie Ahern:But the issue is that I got money from Mr O'Callaghan, Mr Gilmartin said that I got money from Mr O'Callaghan. What you have done in this case, and maybe there's not many cases on these issues, where you could prove I didn't get it from Mr O'Callaghan. What you've done in this case is proved that I got it from Mr O'Connor.
And what the tribunal found out in the process of that is that I got it from Mr O'Connor but Mr O'Connor says I got it on false pretences from him.
So in fact, don't look so shocked because the argument isn't that I didn't get it from Mr O'Connor.
The argument is that Mr O'Connor gave it to me or gave to Gerry Brennan or gave it to Des Richardson to give to me. So there is no dispute about the evidence. The dispute is how I handled it then. So in fact is what you have proved is that I didn't get it from O'Callaghan which is the first time I think since for months that we got to talk about that. But anyway, that's what you've proved. In this case, that we got it from Mr O'Connor.
Now I got it from Mr O'Connor. I got it from Gerry Brennan. Des Richardson gave it to Gerry Brennan and the argument is there's no argument with Mr O'Connor that I got it or didn't get it. What he argues is that there was two accounts. There was account for Bertie Ahern personally. I understood that that's what he gave it for. Then the constituency account which is the name of Bertie Ahern, by the way, that that's. He says I should have put it into that account.
So, chairman, that's what the argument is. It's not an argument where I got it. There is no argument about whether I got this money, Pádraic O'Connor he gave £5,000. He said instead of putting it into Bertie Ahern's account constituency account I shouldn't have done that - I should have done that I shouldn't have put it into my personal account. That's what the argument is.
Now, when I thanked Mr O'Connor in January 1994, he was a good friend of mine through the '90s, very helpful to me, a very good adviser. I thanked him on the basis that he gave me a personal donation. He could have said then or any other time that it wasn't a personal donation.
I always believed it was a personal donation. I never thought of why it was done in such a convoluted way.
I mean, I know Mr O'Connor. I know Mr O'Connor's family. I know a lot of Mr O'Connor's friends. He was in my office endlessly when he was chairman of NCB. I went to meet fund managers of NCB. I went to the K Club for him. I went to the Druid's Glen for him. I know his brother, his brother-in-law Justice Henigan very well. I knew his wife's family very well. I was at functions in their licensed premises. I went to his own house.
Now if years later Mr O'Connor wants to disown me and he doesn't know me, well that's his bloody business not mine!