Tribunal rises, follows Charlie's pursuit of gratification

The Moriarty tribunal in Dublin Castle could be considered the Republic's equivalent of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. What is being investigated is not crime linked to a particular public policy but the private finances of Charles Haughey.

Nevertheless, as in South Africa, each new piece of evidence disclosed serves to confront the public with the question of how such a thing could happen. In the Irish instance the question is: how could such a man have been allowed to climb to the leadership of the largest political party in the State and then have been elected four times to the office of Taoiseach?

The tribunal is still engaged in identifying payments to the former Taoiseach and hearing evidence from donors about those payments. It will later return to the issue of the motivation, and whether any favours were done by Mr Haughey in return.

However, the facts already disclosed reveal that Mr Haughey used his public position for personal gain.

We now know that in his first month as Taoiseach Mr Haughey bullied Allied Irish Banks into settling a debt of £1.134 million with a payment of £750,000, even though the bank had guarantees worth in excess of the entire debt.

We know he collected money from businessmen who won public contracts; from businessmen who were flattered to get access to the most powerful politician in the State, or who perhaps hoped to gain from access to the most powerful politician in the State. We know he asked for donations to his personal political campaign fund and then used the money for private reasons.

He may have made personal use of funds belonging to the political party he led, funds which were given to the party by the State. During his appearance before the tribunal this week, Bertie Ahern, without seeing any humour in the statement, solemnly informed the tribunal that when Mr Haughey resigned as leader Fianna Fail's finances were in a terrible condition.

The most shocking development to date has been evidence that Mr Haughey may have misused funds meant for the medical care of his closest political colleague, the late Brian Lenihan.

Later this year evidence is likely to be heard about the controversial "passports-for-sale" scheme and the degree, if any, of Mr Haughey's involvement in the scheme. The late Des Traynor was often the person making the links between the different elements of Mr Haughey's complex, compartmentalised life. He seems to have moved around the city attending business meetings and business lunches and, while doing so, collecting lodgments and handing over withdrawals from the secretive Ansbacher deposits. The tribunal terms of reference charge it to investigate whether any of the depositors transferred funds to Mr Haughey.

Mr Haughey appointed Mr Traynor to the board of Aer Lingus and Mr Traynor thereby gained access to commercial information about its subsidiary, Irish Helicopters. The accountant and banker then helped Mr Ciaran Haughey establish a rival company, Celtic Helicopters, and even raised seed capital from directors of Aer Lingus.

Aer Lingus owned a hotel group, and Mr Traynor oversaw its operations, while at the same time acting as a senior and trusted adviser to the Doyle Hotel group. The only reason he wasn't on the Doyle board was that it would disclose the conflict of interest.

The evidence suggests donations flowed in for Mr Haughey while he was in office, and dried up when he wasn't.

The amount of money Mr Haughey spent is staggering. During the 1970s he managed to run up a personal debt with AIB of £1.143 million. Mr Traynor negotiated the settlement of the debt and £750,000 was paid from an account in Guinness & Mahon bank (where Mr Traynor was de facto chairman).

At least £300,000 of this £750,000 almost definitely came from Mr Patrick Gallagher, of the Gallagher Group, who gave the money to Mr Haughey after Mr Haughey asked him for assistance in clearing a debt. Mr Haughey had just been appointed Taoiseach at the time. The other £450,000 is believed to have come from two other as yet unnamed individuals.

Mr Haughey had four accounts which bore his name with Guinness & Mahon bank from 1979 to 1987, and £1.5 million was lodged to them during the period. Most of the time the accounts were badly overdrawn. Some of the funds passed from one account to another and one of the Dunne payments, a cheque for £282,500 sterling, was lodged to the accounts. Nevertheless, the non-Dunne money which passed through the accounts must have been in excess of £1 million and it is not clear as yet where this money came from.

IT is known that Mr Haughey took out a loan for £400,000 from Guinness Mahon Cayman Trust, now Ansbacher (Cayman), in 1983, and this money may well have been all lodged to the Guinness & Mahon accounts. The loan seems to have been repaid in 1987, the year Mr Haughey was returned to power after five years in opposition. Mr Haughey has refused to grant a waiver to the tribunal giving it access to his bank records in the Cayman Islands.

It has also been revealed that the late Mr P.V. Doyle, of the Doyle Hotel group, facilitated loans totalling £170,000 taken out from G&M by Mr Haughey. The loans, with interest, were eventually repaid by Mr Doyle's estate.

In the period 1987 to 1992 Mr Ben Dunne gave Mr Haughey £1.8 million. The bulk of this was lodged to the Ansbacher deposits, and used to pay Mr Haughey's living expenses.

Another potentially large source of funds may have been the Fianna Fail leader's allowance. In the period 1984 to 1992, some £1 million was given by the State to Mr Haughey as party leader. The files in relation to the account are missing, but bank records show that during those years large round figure withdrawals were made.

In 1986 alone the round-figure withdrawals exceeded £75,000. There is no obvious reason for such withdrawals. One cheque for £25,000, written in June 1989 and made out to cash, is known to have been lodged to an account in G&M linked to Mr Haughey.

Withdrawals totalling £35,000 in October 1986 occurred on the same dates as lodgments for identical amounts were made to other accounts linked to Mr Haughey. The picture is complicated by the fact that other lodgments, totalling approximately £500,000, were made to the leader's allowance account during the 1984-92 period.

Included in those lodgments were donations made for Mr Lenihan's medical treatment. In 1989, the year of Mr Lenihan's liver transplant operation, £200,000 in excess of the party leader's allowance was lodged. That same year a cheque from Irish Permanent for £20,000, intended for the Lenihan fund and made out to Mr Haughey, was lodged to an account of Celtic Helicopters.

Payments to Celtic Helicopters over the years were made by businessmen known to Mr Haughey. Payments were made by Mr Doyle; Mr Joe Malone (an Aer Lingus director); Dr John O'Connell; Mr John Byrne (a property developer; Mr Traynor was a director of one of his main companies); Mr Xavier McAuliffe; the late Mr Pat Butler; Mr Guy Snowden (former chairman of a US corporation which runs the National Lottery's computer system); Mr Cruse Moss (former chairman of a US corporation which manufactured buses in Shannon for use by CIE); and Mr Seamus Purcell. A further investment by a Mr David Gresty was organised by Mr Larry Goodman's insurance broker, Mr Mike Murphy.

The Moriarty tribunal hearings, which have cost £2.7 million already, not including the legal costs of witnesses and interested parties, are unlikely to conclude until January or February of next year.