House bequest made 'no sense' - Ahern

WALL LEGACY:MR AHERN has said he could make no sense of Micheál Wall's decision to bequeath him his house in Dublin.

Mr Wall wrote a will in 1996 leaving 44 Beresford Avenue in Drumcondra to Mr Ahern. At the time, Mr Ahern was renting the house from him.

Mr Ahern said he knew nothing about the will until last year when Mr Wall asked him over the phone whether he remembered it. He told Mr Wall he did not and he also checked with his former partner Celia Larkin, who also did not remember it.

Mr Ahern said if Mr Wall had died before 1997, when Mr Ahern purchased the house from him, he would not have accepted the house.

"I would have been duty bound to buy it off his wife, because I couldn't accept that," Mr Ahern said. "I would not in conscience have been able to accept it."

Henry Murphy, for the tribunal, said that if Mr Wall had died after Mr Ahern, the house would have been left to Mr Ahern's daughters. He asked whether Mr Ahern had suggested Mr Wall make the will. Mr Ahern said he did not.

"Mr Brennan didn't suggest it?" Mr Murphy asked. "Certainly not," Mr Ahern replied.

He said Mr Wall told him he decided to make the will to ensure Mr Ahern had an opportunity to buy the house if he died.

Mr Murphy said if Mr Wall wanted to protect Mr Ahern, there were other ways of dealing with it.

"I can make no sense of it," Mr Ahern said.

Mr Murphy suggested that if Mr Wall had only bought Beresford "on paper", a will would make sense because it would ensure the house would go to Mr Ahern instead of Mr Wall's estate.

"It would . . . the point is that isn't what happened," Mr Ahern said. Mr Murphy also asked whether Mr Ahern recalled Mr Wall staying at Beresford between 1995 and 1997, before Mr Ahern bought the house.

Mr Ahern said Mr Wall stayed in 1996, 1997 and 1998 and later. The visits included one with his son and one with a friend of his.