No advice to destroy data - accountant

A SENIOR partner with accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has said he did not advise former taoiseach Bertie Ahern to destroy documents after he prepared income and expenditure accounts for him in 2001.

Ronan Murphy said Mr Ahern provided him with a suitcase of documents dating back to 1983 for the “No 1” constituency account and asked him to prepare accounts for each year up to 1999.

PwC called the assignment “Project Luke” and Mr Murphy liaised with Mr Ahern and his secretary, Sandra Cullagh, over a number of days. He said he was reliant on his client for explanations where there was incomplete documentation, and he told Mr Ahern that he could carry out the work only as an exercise, and would not be issuing any form of assurance with the completed work. Afterwards, the documents were returned to Mr Ahern.

Constituency treasurer Dominic Dillane earlier told the tribunal that those back-up documents had been destroyed. He said he was told the constituency had been advised by PwC that they should destroy documents after six years.

Tribunal counsel Des O’Neill asked Mr Murphy if he had given any information to Mr Ahern or anyone else about document destruction policies in 2001.

“I have no recollection of any discussion on document retention policies,” Mr Murphy responded.

Mr O’Neill said the purpose of conducting an exercise on one account seemed pointless since there were seven accounts that would have to be considered to receive a balanced view of the affairs of the constituency.

Denis O’Connor, also a partner with PwC, was asked to prepare income and expenditure accounts for four other accounts by Mr Ahern in 2008, the tribunal heard.

The accounts were titled “Cumann O’Donovan Rossa”, “Election 1989”, “Election 1992” and the “B/T” account. He also worked on updated versions of the No 1 constituency account.

He said he attended meetings with Mr Ahern in St Luke’s and Mr Ahern provided him with bank statements, but had little supporting documentation. He did have a notebook, Mr O’Connor said, in which he had written down as many explanations for the transactions as he was able to ascertain.

A lodgement of £2,285.71 to the B/T account was initially attributed to an Irish company, then to builder Michael Wall and then to “Walls”, the tribunal was told.

“Mr Ahern changed the description as the course of it evolved,” Mr O’Connor said.

Mr O’Neill said the taoiseach’s office asked him if they retained files from the 1980s and 1990s and he had explained their internal policy was to destroy them after six or seven years.

Deirdre McGrath, senior manager with PwC, who also worked on the project, said she e-mailed Ms Cullagh with details of PwC file retention policy, but did not recommend that Fianna Fáil adopt it.

She said she provided printed, bound copies of the accounts three days before Mr Ahern appeared at the tribunal in February 2008.