The bank worker who brought secret documents revealing the names of Ansbacher depositors including Mr Denis Foley TD to the attention of the tribunal was praised for her courage by Mr Justice Moriarty yesterday.
Ms Margaret Keogh, an employee at Guinness & Mahon since 1971, was asked to store the documents in her home by Mr Padraig Collery, her former boss who operated the Ansbacher deposits in Ireland.
As a general office worker and data in-putter, she worked on the Ansbacher accounts under Mr Collery's direction while he was assistant manager at the bank from 1977 to 1988, for which she received no additional remuneration or overtime pay. Previously, the tribunal heard Mr Collery was paid substantial amounts of money by Mr Des Traynor, and subsequently Mr John Furze, for the operation of the accounts.
Ms Keogh said she used to meet Mr Collery once or twice a year socially after he left the bank. One evening last October he phoned her to ask if she could do him a favour. He arrived at her home half-an-hour later with a number of items which he said he needed to keep in a safe place.
Mr Collery asked whether she could hold on to them until he had a chance to visit his home in Sligo. He asked if she had an envelope and she gave him one after first emptying the contents. "I went up upstairs to get Sello tape and when I came back down the envelope was full," she said.
She never saw the documents and did not question why they were being given to her "because I had been out for a meal and I had a bit of drink on me and it was just a friend phoning asking a favour."
Some time later, however, she was out celebrating with relatives and it "slipped out" that she had an envelope at home given to her by Mr Collery. "The person who I was with said it was peculiar," she said. That person recommended to her that she should bring the matter to the attention of her solicitor. Her solicitor opened the envelope and, after studying the documents, advised Ms Keogh that they seemed to be of relevance to the tribunal.
In fact, the documents provided the key which identified the names behind a number of coded Ansbacher accounts, including Mr Denis Foley's.
Earlier, she explained her role in in-putting data and printing statements relating to the Ansbacher accounts, known within the bank as the "bureau system". Mr Collery used to ask her to stay behind, normally once a month, to do this work, usually taking no more than three hours.
Ms Keogh said she would not have described the work as secretive but it might have been confidential. It was never discussed with anyone else at the bank and never came up in conversation.
She never received printed instructions in relation to the accounts, only handwritten notes from Mr Collery. She had noticed the accounts were coded but never knew to whom the codes referred.
The bureau system ceased to operate about a year or two before Mr Collery left the bank. Asked by counsel for the tribunal, Mr Jerry Healy SC, whether she asked anyone why it had stopped, given it was a source of overtime, Ms Keogh replied: "Yes, but I didn't get paid for overtime. It was just doing my day's work."
Before she left the witness box, the tribunal chairman, Mr Justice Moriarty, said he was aware the past few months had been quite stressful and troubling for Ms Keogh "and I just want to state that what you did was correct, courageous and of no small importance to this tribunal".
