On June 11th, 1997, Mr Bertie Ahern told Ms Mary Harney that he proposed to include Mr Ray Burke in the Cabinet, Ms Harney told the tribunal. Mr Ahern and she had conversations about allegations on planning matters up to the day before the Government was formed on June 26th. Mr Garrett Cooney SC, for the Murphy group, said it seemed the first information she received on the matter was from the wife of Mr Gay Grehan, then JMSE director. Ms Harney said the first information was from Mr Garvin McGinley, PDs general secretary.
She was in a car travelling to Dublin with Mr McGinley in the run-up to the 1997 election and Dr Mary Grehan telephoned Mr McGinley and said her husband had information she wanted to have passed on to Ms Harney. Mr Cooney asked if Mr Grehan phoned her at her home on a number of occasions between June 11th and June 25th, 1997. Ms Harney said Mr Grehan did not have her home telephone number.
Mr Grehan indicated to Mr McGinley that he wished to speak to Ms Harney. Mr McGinley got Mr Grehan on the line and she spoke to him. She thought she spoke to Mr Grehan at least three times. When asked if she had made any notes, Ms Harney said she was able to recall very clearly the substance of what Mr Grehan was telling her, which she was passing on to Mr Ahern. ail. She did not take contemporaneous notes. "If I'd known I'd be coming here I certainly would have," she said.
Mr Cooney asked if Mr Grehan had used the expression that it was his understanding and that he had no first-hand knowledge. Ms Harney said: "Clearly what he was telling me was very important in the context of the new government that was going to be formed and I wasn't going to veto anybody's membership of that government on the basis of unsubstantiated allegations.
"I wasn't going to destroy their good name or family or their career. So I pressed Mr Grehan on whether or not he had first-hand knowledge and he told me he didn't." Mr Cooney said Mr Grehan had made a statement to the tribunal and would be giving evidence stating that what he knew about this was based on "rumour and hearsay".
Ms Harney said it was on hearsay within the company, as she understood it. "When I was talking to him I took it that I was talking to him because he was a director of JMSE and that's why I had so many conversations with him," she said.
Mr Cooney said in Mr Grehan's statement he said any information he had about the alleged transaction and these events was based on general conversations he had with others in JMSE. Ms Harney said: "Clearly if it was just rumour or innuendo as you suggest, I wouldn't have had as many conversations. I clearly took what he was saying to me seriously and that's why I put it forward to the leader of the Fianna Fail party."
Mr Cooney said Mr Grehan offered to give her Mr Joseph Murphy jnr's number in London. Ms Harney said Mr Grehan asked her if she would speak to Mr Murphy. "There's no way that anybody who knows me would believe that I would seek to speak to somebody I didn't know in relation to a matter that was so serious. So at no stage did I ask to speak to Mr Murphy," she said.
Mr Cooney asked about the figure of £60,000. He asked if she remembered any mention of a sum of £40,000. Mr Grehan had mentioned the sum in his statement.
Ms Harney said: "No, my clear memory is that he said that JMSE gave £30,000 and that was matched by £30,000 by Michael Bailey, Bovale. That was my clear understanding and that was the figure I advanced to the leader of Fianna Fail, Bertie Ahern." Ms Harney said Mr Grehan did not go into the detail of how the money was made up. "My overriding concern in relation to this matter was whether or not any money, in whatever amount, was taken in return for securing planning favours and my interest was in whether or not the allegations into wrongdoing could be substantiated," she said.
Mr Cooney asked if she had talked to Mr Grehan since June 1997 on these matters. Mr Harney replied that she had on a number of occasions. The first was in the autumn of 1998 when he and his wife and other people from the Louth constituency came to Dail Eireann.
There was at least one other occasion, maybe for a second after a general council meeting of the PDs. She had not spoken to him since she gave her statement to the tribunal as she felt it would be improper to do so.
Mr Colm Allen SC, for the Baileys and Bovale, said when Mr Bertie Ahern came back to her after he carried out his investigation, he told her there was only one payment. Ms Harney said: "Yes, he said there was one payment of £30,000 from JMSE, Mr Gogarty, that Mr Burke had retained £20,000 for his own election expenses in the Dublin North constituency and that £10,000 had gone to the Fianna Fail party.
"Subsequently I heard, of course, after Mr Burke left the Government, that the £10,000 that went to the Fianna Fail party was from Rennicks. Had I known that then, the circumstances would have been different." When Mr Allen asked her if Mr Bertie Ahern had told her that the one payment had not come from Mr Michael Bailey. Ms Harney said that was correct. Mr Frank Callanan SC, for Mr James Gogarty, asked if Mr Grehan had indicated what sources of information there were "in the company". Ms Harney said he was not specific as to who had told him, but her understanding was that he was talking to her in his capacity as JMSE director.
That was why she took it seriously and she told Mr Bertie Ahern that it was sources in the company. Dr Mary Grehan was a PD candidate in 1997. Mr Grehan was certainly someone she knew but not well. She believed he was somebody who was genuinely trying to help her.
Asked about Mr Murphy being anxious to speak to her, Ms Harney said that subsequent to the establishment of the tribunal, Mr Michael Bailey also sought to speak to her, she presumed in relation to the allegations.
She was putting questions to Fianna Fail and had several discussions with Mr Bertie Ahern about the matter up to the day before the Government was formed. "Bertie Ahern told me on June 11th that he proposed including Ray Burke in the Cabinet... In the intervening period between that and June 25th, I had several conversations."
When asked by Mr Pat Hanratty SC, for the tribunal, about Mr Michael Bailey, Ms Harney said the tribunal wrote to all political parties about records of any donations by Mr Bailey or Bovale. In that connection, Mr Bailey asked to speak to her concerning the tribunal and she refused to do so.