The thread running through all the evidence of Mr Denis Foley yesterday was the secrecy with which he conducted his financial affairs in order to keep from the Revenue Commissioners the fact that he had undeclared income going back more than 30 years.
When in the summer of 1997 the McCracken tribunal began to reveal the existence of a secret financial operation run by the late Mr Des Traynor and involving Mr Padraig Collery, the Cayman Islands banker the late Mr John Furze, and Guinness & Mahon bank, the former dancehall manager must have felt the first tugs of the net closing around him. The bank and the three bankers were all involved in his secret offshore deposit.
The McCracken report was published in August 1997, and the Dail reconvened in September to consider it. Mr Foley said nothing. On September 27th, after a passionate political debate and with intense media commentary calling for a full inquiry into the Ansbacher deposits, the Moriarty tribunal was established.
Its terms of reference did not include a full-scale inquiry, which would include the naming of all Ansbacher depositors, but did include the investigation of any "holder of public office" with links to the accounts.
Mr Foley took part in the Dail vote without disclosing his likely conflict of interest. For this he will now face investigation by a Dail committee.
The former Guinness & Mahon banker, Mr Collery, who had handed over £50,000 in cash from Mr Foley's Ansbacher account to the TD in 1995, did not reveal the TD's involvement when interviewed by the tribunal. He kept the secret for more than two years, even when giving sworn testimony.
In August 1998 Mr Foley telephoned Mr Collery and requested a meeting. They met in the Trust House Forte Hotel at Dublin Airport. Both say there was no discussion of whether the tribunal had evidence of Mr Foley's account, and that neither did they discuss the fact that Mr Collery was leaving himself open to criminal charges as a result of his not naming Mr Foley.
In May 1999 Mr Foley received bank statements concerning his account showing balances and the words "Ansbacher Ltd" and "Hamilton Ross". He panicked, he said, and put the documents in a file. The statements were sent to him by Mr Collery, without a covering note, seemingly as a result of a request from Mr Foley during the airport meeting nine months earlier.
As 1999 progressed, Mr Foley allowed himself to be selected for the six-man subcommittee of the Public Accounts Committee which conducted the televised DIRT inquiry. During the year Mr Collery made several appearances before the Moriarty tribunal, which received extensive media coverage. Mr Foley said nothing.
In November the massive deception came to an end when documents Mr Collery had not disclosed, and which mentioned Mr Foley, came to the attention of the tribunal.
Mr Foley's testimony yesterday is the first example of a witness giving a complete history of his Ansbacher account, which was opened at Mr Traynor's suggestion in 1979. Mr Foley told of contacts and visits he made to Mr Traynor's office in Cement Roadstone Holdings' registered offices on Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin, to discuss his account.
He even collected £10,000 there once, in cash, from Mr Traynor. Although it has been known since 1997 that Mr Traynor ran his unauthorised bank from his Cement Roadstone office, this is the first time it has been revealed that large cash transactions took place on the premises.