Analysis:Taoiseach claims private report by bank expert he hired found no evidence of dollar lodgement. AIB bank records conflict with information the Taoiseach has given to the tribunal, writes Colm Keena
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern yesterday altered the account he has given the tribunal concerning a number of transactions involving foreign currency. The changes undermine some conclusions damaging to Ahern that the tribunal seemed to be drawing from records available from AIB, although it remains the case that the bank's records continue to conflict with Ahern's testimony.
The first of the transactions about which Ahern has altered his account concerns a lodgement of £24,838.49, made on October 11th, 1994. Ahern has on a number of occasions told the tribunal that this lodgement was made up of £16,500 which he got, in cash, from four named supporters, in what he called a "dig-out".
The four men have confirmed their donations, although no contemporaneous documentation exists. The remainder of the lodgement was the result of an amount of sterling changed into Irish pounds. This sterling, Ahern has said, came from supporters in Manchester.
The tribunal has pointed out that the amount of money lodged over and above £16,500 does not translate back into a round-figure sterling amount, using the exchange rates in operation in AIB, O'Connell Street, Dublin, on the day in question. It has also said that when one of the exchange rates in operation on the day, an inappropriate one, is applied, the amount lodged converts into exactly £25,000 sterling.
Also, AIB O'Connell Street took in about £2,000 worth of sterling on an average day, but on October 11th, 1994, it took in sterling worth £27,491.95.
Yesterday Ahern altered his account of this lodgement and said the Irish pound element of the lodgement may not have been exactly £16,500. He never counted the money he got from his friends, he said. He kept the money in a safe in St Luke's for a period of time and may have added more Irish cash before making the lodgement with the Manchester sterling. Therefore, the value of the sterling lodged cannot be said to be the difference between £16,500 and the total lodged.
Ahern said he never lodged £25,000 sterling. He said it was "unbelievable" that a bank teller would charge the then minister for finance an inappropriate rate, as this would involve breaching bank rules to the disadvantage of the customer.
However, as the tribunal pointed out in May in an opening statement, the bank's records show that this is precisely what happened in the same branch on December 1st, 1995, when Ahern lodged £20,000 sterling and was given an inappropriate rate.
The second change in Ahern's account concerns the lodgement of £28,772.90 on December 5th, 1994, to an account opened in her name by Celia Larkin. The tribunal has pointed out that this amount equals exactly what a customer would get if they brought $45,000 into the bank on that day, if one of the bank's exchange rates for dollars on that day was applied, and a discretionary £5 commission was deducted. Again this would have involved an inappropriate rate being used, to the disadvantage of the customer.
The tribunal has said that the amount lodged does not convert back into a round-figure sterling amount when any of the exchange rates in use on the day are applied.
Yesterday Ahern said that there never was any dollar lodgement. He said the money lodged was cash he had been given by his prospective landlord, Michael Wall, two days earlier. The tribunal was told by Wall on Tuesday that he never counted this money when he gave it to Ahern, that the bulk of it was sterling, but that there were also some Irish pounds. Larkin, who lodged the money, after Ahern had moved it from his safe to a briefcase, also never counted it and also does not know how much sterling there was.
Ahern, in his statement yesterday, suggested that he never counted the money either. No one, it seems, counted it. He said the money lodged was the money he had received from Wall, "whether sterling, or a combination of sterling and Irish, and whatever amounts were the sums lodged".
The branch records show it took in sterling to a value of just £1,921.30 on the day in question. The amount of non-sterling foreign currency taken in was an unusually large amount, and sufficient to accommodate $45,000.
Ahern said yesterday he had engaged an expert, Paddy Strong, a former chief operating officer of Bank of Ireland Corporate Banking, and his examination of the AIB records had concluded that the evidence "does not substantiate a lodgement of $45,000". This was the first the public has been told of any such work or the involvement of Strong, and it appears the tribunal also has never been shown this work. As it stands, it is an unexamined statement from Ahern.
In his private interview with the tribunal Wall said he gave Ahern £30,000 sterling in cash. In his private interview with the tribunal Ahern said he decided in early 1995 to return this money to Wall, and for this reason he used £50,000 cash he had withdrawn from AIB, and was holding in his safe, to buy £30,000 sterling, which he was to return to Wall.
In the event, he did not do so, and the sterling was relodged to AIB in two lodgements in 1995, one being £10,000 sterling and the other £20,000 sterling.
The tribunal has never been able to find a record of Ahern buying £30,000 sterling from AIB. Yesterday, in his statement, Ahern said he was "clear that I purchased approximately £30,000 sterling in early 1995 in order to give that money to Mick Wall". He said his efforts to establish where and when he had done this were ongoing. The use of the word approximately is odd given that he has said he later relodged this money to AIB, and the records show that precisely £30,000 sterling was lodged.
The conflict between the testimony and the bank's records is ongoing and is likely to be further explored by the tribunal today when Ahern continues his evidence.