Haughey Boland partner placed funds in Ansbacher accounts after leaving firm

A former partner with Haughey Boland told the tribunal he used to place funds he managed for private clients in the Ansbacher deposits.

Mr Jack Stakelum left Haughey Boland in December 1975 and established his own company, Business Enterprises Ltd.

As part of this new role he placed funds offshore through his friend and former colleague in Haughey Boland, the late Mr Des Traynor.

Around 1990 he transferred these offshore funds to AIB offshore.

Mr Stakelum, who took over Mr Charles Haughey's bill-paying service from Haughey Boland in 1991, was giving evidence about a loan which Princes Investments Ltd (PIL), the owner of the Brandon Hotel, Tralee, Co Kerry, had with Guinness & Mahon in the 1980s.

The directors of PIL were the property developer and friend of Mr Charles Haughey, Mr John Byrne; Mr Thomas Clifford; and the late Mr William Clifford.

Both Mr Byrne and the Cliffords had funds with Guinness Mahon Cayman Trust, later Ansbacher Cayman Ltd.

Funds from the offshore bank were used to pay off the PIL loan in September 1985. However, bogus documentation was produced in Guinness & Mahon proporting to show the loan still in existence.

In July 1987 a payment of £260,000 was made to Guinness & Mahon which Mr Thomas Clifford and Mr Byrne have said they intended to be used to pay off the loan.

They have said they had no knowledge of the loan being paid off two years earlier with offshore funds.

Mr Stakelum said he would reconcile the money he had offshore on behalf of private clients every month and would have noticed if Clifford funds were used to settle the loan.

Mr Stakelum said he didn't know that these offshore funds were used to back the PIL loan from Guinness & Mahon.

He could not explain why documents relating to interest on the PIL loan might have been sent to him in 1985 and 1986. He thought it unlikely that this was because Mr Traynor, who was a senior executive with Guinness & Mahon, knew he managed offshore funds for the Cliffords.

The tribunal has heard that the £260,000 paid in 1987 was lodged to an account in the name of Amiens Securities and then dispersed.

The account was controlled by Mr Traynor.