Haughey sought funds for firm - exporter

Mr Charles Haughey approached an acquaintance in the meat industry to ask for funds for Celtic Helicopters, the Moriarty tribunal has heard.

Mr Seamus Purcell said it was his recollection that Mr Haughey asked him for £12,000 after a meeting in the Berkeley Court Hotel, Dublin, in 1985.

He agreed and was later contacted by Mr Haughey's accountant, Mr Des Traynor, to make arrangements.

Mr Traynor asked him if he wanted shares in Celtic Helicopters, but Mr Purcell said he did not and suggested the money be transferred between accounts. The amount was never mentioned after the initial meeting. Led though his evidence by counsel for the tribunal, Mr John Coughlan SC, Mr Purcell agreed he had known Mr Haughey through the meat industry, in which Mr Purcell had an export business. He "admired him for his efforts" on behalf of Irish meat exports, he added.

He recalled receiving a phone-call, probably in 1985, inviting him to a meeting with Mr Haughey at the Berkeley Court. The call was probably from Mr Haughey himself, but no reason was given for the invitation and Mr Purcell "did not ask".

The hour-long meeting featured a "general discussion on the meat industry," including the situation with Libya. When they were leaving, Mr Haughey mentioned that his son, Ciaran, "needed a bit of capital" for his helicopter business. He asked for £12,000 and Mr Purcell agreed. Mr Haughey said Mr Traynor "would be in touch".

Mr Purcell agreed with counsel that "at most," the investment "might earn you some helicopter time". But asked later if he had benefited in this way, he said he had "chartered a helicopter one time to the Galway Races," and added: "The bill came to my office and I paid it." Mr Coughlan put it to him that the tribunal's records suggested the actual payment made was £10,000, but Mr Purcell said his recollection was that it had been £12,000. Earlier, the son of the late Mr Traynor recalled going through his father's schedule of assets after his death in May 1994. Mr Tony Traynor said his father had updated the schedule every year, because he "wanted to be ready if he died suddenly". He had made his will in March 1994 and told his son "that if anything happened" the relevant documents would be in his study.

Mr Traynor jnr - one of the executors of the estate - subsequently found the schedule but he said there was nothing in it referring to an interest his father had acquired in an insurance claim by Celtic Helicopters.

Last March 9th, however, on learning of evidence to this effect at the tribunal, he had his solicitors write to Celtic Helicopters seeking to clarify the issue. The company replied on March 22nd, confirming that the late Mr Traynor had paid £100,000 to acquire the interest in a claim for the loss of a helicopter during the making of the film Far and Away.

Asked by Mr Coughlan if it was only through the tribunal he had learned of the interest, Mr Traynor said it was.