High Court to rule today on Ahern's tribunal challenge

THE HIGH Court will give judgment today on the challenge by former taoiseach Bertie Ahern to the handling by the Mahon tribunal of its inquiries into controversial lodgements to Mr Ahern’s accounts when he was minister for finance in 1993 and 1994.

The case was heard over two days last month by the president of the High Court, Mr Justice Richard Johnson, sitting with Mr Justice Peter Kelly and Mr Justice Iarfhlaith O’Neill, and the court will give its decision today.

The court was also to examine 150 documents, over which Mr Ahern claims legal privilege, relating to his retention of banking expert Paddy Stronge to refute the tribunal’s claims about the nature of two lodgements – one to Mr Ahern’s account and one to an account of his former partner Celia Larkin.

The first issue the court has to decide relates to how the tribunal may, given the protection in Article 15.13 of the Constitution attaching to statements made in the Oireachtas by parliamentarians, deal (both in its examination of Mr Ahern and in its report) with statements made in the Dáil in September and in October 2006 about the taoiseach and about his financial affairs.

The court also has to decide if Mr Ahern is entitled to claim legal privilege over the Stronge documents.

A third issue in the case – in which Mr Ahern sought orders requiring the tribunal to hand over documents on which it based its claims concerning the lodgements – was resolved following the tribunal’s agreement during the case to hand over those documents.

The documents amount to 110 pages, consist of bank data and computer records – and the tribunal said it considered them as of a limited nature and not relevant to cross-examination.