Tribunal officers were preparing yesterday evening for the scheduled appearance of the Taoiseach at the payments-to-politicians inquiry this morning.
A source close to the tribunal said yesterday that Mr Ahern was scheduled to testify this morning. Mr Ahern leaves for London later today for a meeting with the British Prime Minister. Mr Sean Fleming TD is also scheduled to testify today.
The tribunal will ask the Taoiseach about blank cheques he signed when he was a signatory to a bank account from which the Fianna Fail party leader's allowance was administered at the time Mr Charles Haughey was leader.
A cheque for £25,000 from the account which bore Mr Ahern's signature ended up in a Guinness & Mahon account, from which payments were made for the personal benefit of Mr Haughey. The tribunal is also particularly interested in three more cash cheques totalling £22,500 which bore Mr Ahern's signature.
The AIB Baggot Street current account from which the allowance was administered was in the names of Mr Ahern, Mr Haughey and Mr Ray MacSharry. However, Mr Haughey's secretary, Ms Eileen Foy, says she does not recall having ever asked Mr MacSharry to sign a cheque drawn on the account.
The allowance, which was paid from State funds, was intended to assist party leaders in financing the political activities of their parties. The cheques are normally used to meet party expenses and salaries, including those in respect of the research, press and party leader's office.
In a memorandum of evidence provided to the tribunal by Mr Ahern, the Taoiseach says he has "no recollection of ever having signed a cheque made out to cash in any significant amount". However, because of "the volume of transactions through the account" and the necessity for cheques to be written regularly "a practice of presigning blank cheques was put in place".
Mr Ahern said he believed "that as the account was being administered by a highly competent and efficient administrator and bookkeeper", he believed the conduct of the account to be proper. As far as he was concerned at the time, there was "no evidence of any irregularity applying to the use made of the cheques which were drawn on account in this way".
In his memorandum, Mr Ahern said the £25,000 cheque payable to cash was drawn about the time of the 1989 general election and it was likely he had presigned a series of cheques in advance of the election date to allow the account to be smoothly operated.
Counsel for the tribunal, Mr John Coughlan SC, said last week that there was a "direct correspondence" between substantial withdrawals from the account in 1986 and lodgments of identical sums soon afterwards to an account in Haughey Boland and Co.
When asked yesterday afternoon if the Taoiseach would appear before the tribunal today, a Government spokesman would say only that Mr Ahern had been notified by the tribunal at the beginning of last week that he was likely to be called to give evidence before the end of this week.