MR BEN DUNNE handed Mr Charles Haughey bank drafts worth £210,000 when he dropped in on him in Kinsealy for a cup of tea, the tribunal was told. As he left he took the drafts from his pocket and said. "Look, that's something for yourself," and Mr Haughey said. "Thank you, big fella."
Mr Dunne was giving evidence of the fifth and final payment made by him to the former Taoiseach. The other four were made via intermediaries, including his friend Mr Noel Fox and Mr Haughey's closed associate, Mr Des Traynor. But this was a direct transaction.
Mr Dunne explained how he came to have the bank drafts. For reasons totally unconnected to Mr Haughey or any other politician, he had acquired three bank drafts, each worth £70,000, payable to a Mr Cox, a Mr Montgomery and a Mr Blair. He told the tribunal these were totally fictitious names, and bore no relation to any person who might exist of that name.
He got the drafts from his solicitor, Mr Noel Smyth, and put them in his pocket "for the particular personal use I was going to use them for". He had them in his pocket when he went to play golf in Baltray, north Dublin, with friends. "I was very conscious of them in my pocket every time I was taking a tee or checking a score card," he said.
He rang Mr Haughey and said he was in Baltray and would call for a cup of tea. "I dropped in. I felt he was not himself. We chatted. My son had just been diagnosed with kidney problems which would require a transplant and we were talking about that. On the way out I took the drafts from my pocket and said, `Look, that's something for yourself', and he said, `Thank you, big fella'.
"Under no circumstances did he make any reference to financial difficulties or say `Times are tough' or anything like that. I just felt he was down. I've gone through situations in my own life when I knew I was down.
"I felt sorry for the man. For no particular reason, he looked like a broken man. I could not put my finger on it." Mr Dunne told Mr McCullough that during the litigation with his siblings he had thought that this money had been given to other members of his family, but when he examined the bank books he realised it had gone to Mr Haughey.
He agreed with Mr McCullough that the drafts had been sent by Mr Traynor's secretary to the Irish Intercontinental Bank to the same Cayman Islands bank as the previous money he had paid for Mr Haughey's benefit.
He said he had no dealings with Mr Traynor, nor had Dunnes Stores, and there was no reason why the bank drafts should have ended up in Mr Traynor's hands. Nor did he have any dealings with the Ansbacher bank in the Cayman Islands.
Since that episode he had met Mr Haughey twice, once at a dinner party and again when he met him for lunch.