Taoiseach tells of £50,000 kept in a safe for years

The Taoiseach has revealed that he kept £50,000 in cash in a safe in the late 1980s and early 1990s, during the early years of his marriage separation, when he was a government minister.

In an interview in the current edition of Village magazine, Mr Ahern admitted: "There is no great secret about that. When I was separated I wasn't using my bank account because Miriam [ his wife] had the bank accounts. So I just saved it in a safe."

Pressed to elaborate, he said: "I just saved my money. It was no big deal. I just saved it."

The savings were part of a substantial sum of money which became the subject of controversy last autumn when The Irish Times revealed that the Mahon tribunal had sought an explanation of the money's source.

The Taoiseach said he had saved £50,000 himself. He said friends in Dublin had held a collection and given him £22,500 in December 1993, and another £16,000 in October 1994.

There was also £8,000 from a group of businessmen in Manchester. Asked if he accepted that the payments, which totalled £96,500 (€122,555) in 1994 terms, were a legitimate issue for the media to ask questions about, he said: "What I believe about it is that you're asked to co-operate about one thing and a story comes out on another thing. I mean it was legitimate to ask me did I get money from Gilmartin or O'Callaghan, or did I do something on rezoning on Quarryvale? They are all legitimate questions.

"My defence, to show that I didn't do anything there, was I gave all the personal details of my life. And between both tribunals, I gave everything about everything for about 20 years. And then somebody just takes a few bits and gives them out. Once it came out it was legitimate and I had to answer and I did."

Mr Ahern also told the interviewer Katie Hannon that anyone who was close to him had to endure media intrusion.

"Anybody who's close to me either politically or personally gets buried by your colleagues in the media. If you go to a match with me, if you're seen with me, if you go for a pint with me, if you walked up and kissed me in the street, you're a target. It doesn't help I can tell you if anyone who is in any way close to you is just savaged, which is very upsetting.

"You saw the nonsense this week. Paddy Reilly goes to a match with me and he does what he's done for 35 years, he helps out in Iona, and all of a sudden he is painted up as national news. I did an interview on Northern Ireland and I get page 17."