THE chairman of the Dunnes Stores payments to politicians tribunal has made a secret trip to the Cayman Islands in an effort to establish whether the former Taoiseach, Mr Charles Haughey, was the intended beneficiary of payments allegedly made by Mr Ben Dunne.
The tribunal is due to begin hearing evidence on Monday and central to its investigations will be allegations first made by Mr Dunne in legal documents in late 994 that almost £1.1 million sterling of Dunnes Stores money was paid to Mr Haughey.
The allegations of the payments are contained in documents drawn up by Mr Dunne and his legal advisers. The Irish Times has established the details of these claims, which involve four payments made between mid 1988 and 1991.
As part of this correspondence, Mr Dunne claimed that Mr Haughey was the beneficiary of the £1.071 million sterling, made in four payments.
The first payment, made in July 1988, was of £471,000. It came from a US dollar account in Switzerland to Barclay's Bank in Knightsbridge, London, and according to Mr Dunne, was made payable to Mr John Furze, a Cayman Island banker.
The second payment of £250,000 originated in Dunnes Stores in Bangor, Co Down, and was paid to Mr Ftirze in 1988 or 1989.
The third payment of £150,000 was made in May 1989 into a Royal Bank of Scotland account in London, while the final payment of £200,000 originated in the Isle of Man and went into a Henry Ansbacher account, also in London.
Mr Dunne says that he arranged three of the four payments himself. In the 1994 documents he also names a prominent accountant, whom he says he instructed to carry out one of the payments.
The alleged payments are being pursued with vigour by the tribunal team. The Irish homes has learned that the tribunal chairman, Mr Justice Brian McCracken, was accompanied by members of his legal team when he made his personal trip to the Cayman Islands. There he sought to investigate financial transactions and bank accounts believed to be linked to Mr Dunne's payments.
In another attempt to identify the route and eventual destination of Mr Dunne's payments, the tribunal's legal team also travelled to the UK, and, possibly, to the Isle of Man. On this occasion, Mr Justice McCracken did not accompany the team.
With Mr Dunne due to appear as the first witness to give evidence in Dublin Castle at 10.30 a.m. on Monday, informed sources have confirmed that Mr Haughey has not, so far, sought legal representation at the tribunal. An order of discovery was made against Mr Haughey at a private session of the tribunal yesterday week and it is understood that he was directed to respond within a week.
Though Mr Haughey, as a former leader of Fianna Fail, was invited to attend this weekend's party ardfheis, he has informed the party that he will not be present.
Last night, in a direct effort to distance himself from Mr Haughey, the Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, confronted the payments controversy head on in his opening speech to ardfheis delegates.
Identifying Mr Haughey without naming him, Mr Ahern said that in hi mind, it was just as unacceptable to seek a million or half a million pounds from the Soviet Communist Party gas it is to seek it from Ben Dunne".
"Certainly, there would be n& place in our party today for that kind of past behaviour, no matter how eminent the person involved or the extent of their prior services to the country," he told delegates.
Warning that the person now being referred to was entitled to a presumption of innocence until otherwise proven, Mr Ahern also stated that his position and that of his colleagues was guile clear going into this election.
"Participation in the democratic life of this country is about public service, not self service or the sustaining of a certain lifestyle," Mr Ahern declared.