Tribunal told of visit to Cayman Islands

The former Guinness & Mahon accountant, Mr Padraig Collery, made a secret visit to the Cayman Islands in July 1998, months after the Moriarty tribunal had begun its investigations, the tribunal heard yesterday.

The reason he went, he said, was because he was worried the Ansbacher deposits were not being accounted for properly. Depositors had complained to him they were having difficulty in getting statements from the Cayman banker, Mr Barry Benjamin, who had taken over control of the deposits after Mr John Furze's death in July 1997.

Mr Collery said it was "probably not a very wise act", but he decided to visit Mr Benjamin so the two of them could reconcile the depositors' accounts. He admitted, however, this could have been done in Dublin, as the only documents which Mr Benjamin had on the deposits were provided to him by Mr Collery.

Counsel for the tribunal, Mr John Coughlan SC, pressed Mr Collery on why he never informed the tribunal of the trip, which took place at a time when it was seeking information on the deposits and when there was concern about important documents being taken out of Ireland to the Cayman Islands.

Mr Collery replied: "In hindsight it may not have been a very wise reason and I apologise for that but I had genuine concerns about non-accountability of funds . . . There was extreme pressure on me. I thought, or I believed, that my phone was tapped." Pressed further, Mr Collery said there was also "the lure of an invitation to Cayman for a week".

He noted the reconciliation took him only two-and-a-half days, "the other two-and-a-half was spent on Seven-Mile Beach".

Mr Collery added that, in the course of the reconciliation, Mr Benjamin asked him to spread the cost of Mr Furze's legal challenge to the McCracken tribunal among the depositors, rather than charge it to Hamilton Ross, the company which had taken over the Ansbacher deposits. Mr Furze's had prevented the tribunal from gaining access to documents in the Cayman Islands relating to payments from Dunnes Stores to politicians.

Mr Collery said he split the legal fees between the 19 remaining clients in the system. Some £5,000 sterling was allotted to A/ A40, the account belonging to Mr Denis Foley TD.