A FORMER close business associate of Mr Ben Dunne has backed Mr Dunne's claim that he paid almost £1.3 million to Mr Charles Haughey to rescue him from serious financial difficulties.
Mr Noel Fox, an accountant and trustee of Dunnes Settlement Trust, told the Tribunal of Inquiry (Dunnes Payments) yesterday he had helped organise the payments from Dunnes Stores funds into foreign banks. He said he had "no doubt" the money was intended for Mr Haughey.
His evidence followed that of Mr Dunne, who also said he had no doubt the money was going to Mr Haughey. Mr Fox said the requests for payments for Mr Haughey had come from the late Mr Des Traynor, who he said was "one of the people you would expect might be helping Mr Haughey to sort out a financial or business problem".
Mr Fox and Mr Dunne gave the same detailed accounts yesterday of how the money was paid. They listed four payments made variously from accounts in Newry, Zurich and the Isle of Man to accounts in London banks. Both said Mr Traynor had instructed Mr Fox on each occasion as to what bank accounts the money was to be paid.
All four payments ended up in a bank account in the name of Ansbacher Ltd Cayman Islands, of which Mr Traynor was a non-executive director, in the Guinness & Mahon bank in Dublin of which Mr Traynor was managing director.
It is not yet known whether Mr Haughey intends to give evidence, although the tribunal has the power to subpoena anyone it wishes. Mr Haughey has been told by the tribunal he may seek legal representation there, but has so far declined to do so.
Mr Dunne revealed that while he had only met Mr Haughey once before 1987, and twice since November 1991, he had met him "50 or 60 times" in total.
Explaining why he had been so generous towards Mr Haughey yesterday, Mr Dunne said "I had tremendous respect for him and I continue in my own way to respect him ... It would have crossed my mind on a personal basis it would not have been nice to see our prime minister in huge financial difficulties."
He and Mr Fox said that in his first phone call to Mr Fox, Mr Traynor had asked would Mr Dunne become one of a number of businessmen to pay £150,000 each to solve Mr Haughey's financial difficulties. According to Mr Fox, Mr Dunne's response was: "Look, I really don't want someone like Mr Traynor trawling around trying to put a consortium together". He said he was prepared to pay it all himself.
He rejected the suggestion that he had created a situation, whereby the Taoiseach of the day, was indebted to him in some way. He said that on "a good few occasions" in his life he had helped out people in financial difficulties by giving them up to £400,000 or £500,000 and "in no way did feel they were indebted to me.
He believed Mr Haughey's financial difficulty was not one of ongoing financial problems, but of a debt of "around one million quid". He had thought these debts would be "very embarrassing" for Mr Haughey.
Mr Dunne also described in detail yesterday the occasion or which he says he handed Mr Haughey three bank drafts worth £70,000 each after having a cup 01 tea with him at his Kinsealy home. He said Mr Haughey had appeared to be "not himself... don't want this to sound the wrong way, but I felt sorry for him, he looked down, like a broken man, I couldn't put my finger on it".
He had the three drafts in his pocket for a separate, unconnected reason. However on the way out he handed them to Mr Haughey and said "look, that's something for yourself" to which Mr Haughey had replied, "thank you, big fella".
He agreed with Mr Denis McCullough SC, counsel for the tribunal, the drafts had subsequently been sent by Mr Traynor secretary to the Irish Intercontinental Bank to an account in the name of the same Cayman Island bank as the previous money he had paid for Mr Haughey's benefit.
Mr Dunne also told the tribunal some of the smaller payments he had made to Mr Michael Lowry "certainly might" have been for the purpose of giving a small "under-the-counter Christmas box" to Mr Lowry's staff at Streamline Enterprises.