THE DEATH has occurred of Jack Stakelum, a prominent associate of the late Charles Haughey.

Born in 1934, Mr Stakelum, Kilpedder, Co Wicklow, was an accountant and company director who emerged as a key figure in both the McCracken and Moriarty tribunals.

Mr Stakelum did his articles at Haughey Boland, leaving the company in 1975 to start his own business, Business Enterprises Limited, which had offices in Ballsbridge, Dublin.

Mr Stakelum’s company took on the job of managing Mr Haughey’s household expenses in 1991 after the facility was moved from Deloitte and Touche.

As part of his role, Mr Stakelum placed funds in offshore accounts through his friend and former colleague in Haughey Boland, the late Des Traynor. He had been a close friend of Mr Traynor, who died in 1994.

Mr Stakelum told investigators of the Ansbacher deposits scandal that he sometimes placed clients’ funds with Mr Traynor and that he was aware Mr Traynor placed these funds in offshore banks associated with Guinness Mahon Cayman Trust, which later became Ansbacher Cayman Ltd.

The 2002 report listed nine clients of Ansbacher who were clients through Mr Stakelum.

He told the Moriarty tribunal in 1999 that he had helped to keep Mr Haughey’s personal financial transactions hidden from public scrutiny by paying bills with cheques signed by his secretary and implanted with “almost invisible” microdots, which avoided the need to print his company’s name on the cheques.

Mr Stakelum also served as a non-executive director of the food group Greencore from its flotation in 1991 until 2007.

In that year, he was disqualified from involvement in the management of any company for five years as a result of criticism in the Ansbacher report of his role in the practice of moving money to illegal offshore accounts.