Accounts linked cash payments to Cherrywood

Cash payments totalling more than £64,000 (€81,280) were recorded in the books of Monarch Properties in the early 1990s as a cost of promoting the Cherrywood development in south Co Dublin, the Mahon tribunal heard yesterday.

Monarch bookkeeper Patrick Cooling told Patricia Dillon SC, for the tribunal, that he did not know who were the recipients of the payments, described by Ms Dillon as "a sea of cash".

Mr Cooling told the tribunal he went to the bank with company cheques to get the money, usually on the instructions of the late Phil Monahan. Cheques were initially made out to cash, but by 1993 this had changed to making the cheques out to Allied Irish Bank in whose branch the cheques were cashed.

However, Mr Cooling said that while he recorded the issuing of cheques in the Monarch books, he was not responsible for designating the project associated with the payments.

He could not say what the purpose of the cash was, other than perhaps it had been required by Mr Monahan to add to his collection of vintage cars.

The tribunal also heard a statement from Paul Monahan, son of the late Phil Monahan, reiterating earlier evidence that he knew very little of his father's business arrangements in the early 1990s.

Mr Monahan said his father was a very private man when it came to business and much of Monarch had been taken over by Dunloe Ewart several years before he, Paul, had become managing director in July 2002. He added that he had not become a signatory on the company cheques until April 2003, just months before his father passed away in August of that year.

Tribunal chairman Judge Alan Mahon had last June threatened Mr Monahan with High Court proceedings unless he provided more information about his late father's business affairs. However, Judge Mahon made no comment in this regard yesterday as Mr Monahan's statement was read out.

The tribunal is investigating allegations of bribery surrounding the rezoning of Monarch's land at Cherrywood in south Dublin, as well as donations made by the company to almost 70 politicians.

Responding to detailed questioning on the company accounts by Ms Dillon, Mr Cooling said cheques were usually made out to the AIB after 1992. He agreed with Ms Dillon that two cheques made out for £4,000 and £7,000 in cash in 1993 were therefore unusual.

The cheques were recorded as being payments made in relation to a project called Prague Strategic Studies. They were cashed in the Bank of Ireland in Lucan, Co Dublin.

In the Monarch books the payments were listed on a page headed "payments to Frank Dunlop" and were followed by a note of a payment of £3,000 allegedly made to Hazel Lawlor.

Mr Cooling said he had heard of only two names associated with the Prague project and one of those was the late Liam Lawlor.

The payments were subsequently further accounted for in the Monarch books as payments connected with the Cherrywood projects.

Mr Cooling said he had no role in writing up the purpose of the cheques in the accounts. Responding to William Abrahamson, for Monarch Properties, Mr Cooling said he also had no "operational role" in development projects and had never been in a position to make "a judgment call" as to where the money would be posted in the accounts.

There were, he said, some 15 to 18 companies in the Monarch Properties Group in the early 1990s and he would have issued hundreds of cheques a month.

He told Mr Abrahamson that the money would have represented a "minuscule" amount in relation to the turnover of Monarch Properties at the time.