The former Taoiseach, Mr Charles Haughey, applied to the Central Bank for permission to draw down a £400,000 loan from Guinness Mahon Cayman Trust (GMCT) in December 1982. He had just been defeated in a general election and was facing into a period in opposition which was to last for five years.
The application, for exchange control approval, was signed by Mr Haughey but he told Mr John Coughlan SC, for the tribunal, that he had no memory of the matter or of discussing the loan with his financial adviser, the late Mr Des Traynor. Nor had he any memory of discussing how the massive loan would be repaid. (No evidence has been found in the Irish banking system that it was ever repaid.)
The loan would have been drawn down to "improve" his overall financial situation, Mr Haughey said, and the repayment would have been a matter for Mr Traynor. Repayment was a "down the road" matter.
Mr Haughey had been elected Taoiseach in March 1982. A general election was declared on November 4th, and took place on November 24th. Fianna Fail lost six seats. By December 2nd, when Mr Haughey was selected by Fianna Fail as its nominee for the position of Taoiseach, he was already conceding that talks between himself and Mr Dick Spring of the Labour Party were unlikely to lead to the formation of a government.
On December 3rd Mr Haughey announced a series of appointments by the outgoing government (including that of Mr Joe Malone as a director of Bord Failte; Mr Malone has given evidence at the tribunal concerning payments he made towards the establishment of Celtic Helicopters in 1987).
On December 8th, 1982, Mr Traynor delivered Mr Haughey's letter to the Central Bank. On Sunday, December 12th, the Labour Party gave its approval to a deal with Fine Gael which saw the establishment of a coalition government two days later when the Dail reconvened.
There is no evidence of the loan being lodged to any account under Mr Haughey's name or that of Mr Traynor, though the tribunal has pointed out that £200,000 was lodged to an account in Mr Haughey's name in Guinness & Mahon bank (G&M) on January 4th, 1983. An internal G&M memo of that date, from Mr Padraig Collery to Mr Traynor, notes that close to the sterling equivalent of £200,000 had been transferred from the main Ansbacher deposits account to the "S" memorandum accounts. The money, Mr Collery continued, had further been debited from the "S" accounts and credited to an Irish pound account "as per advice". The G&M account credited with that amount around that time is known to have been Mr Haughey's.
In other words, just weeks after Mr Haughey's application to the Central Bank, which was being handled by Mr Traynor, £200,000 was moved from the Ansbacher deposits to Mr Haughey's G&M account. Mr Haughey's accounts in the Ansbacher deposits were coded S8 and S9.
Mr Traynor, of course, was chairman of GMCT and de facto chief executive of G&M. He and the late Mr Jonathan Guinness had founded the Cayman Bank in the early 1970s. It is now called Ansbacher Cayman.
On January 2nd, 1985, the Cayman Islands banker, the late Mr John Furze, wrote to Mr Haughey in Kinsealy in relation to the £400,000 loan. "We wish to refer to our recent telephone discussion in connection with an extension of the present facility," the letter opens. Mr Furze was then the managing director of GMCT.
Mr Haughey yesterday said that despite the content of the letter, it was not the case that he had a telephone conversation with Mr Furze in January 1985.
He was quite adamant on the point. The only time he had ever spoken with Mr Furze was at Mr Traynor's funeral in 1994, he said. He had met him "en passant" at the funeral, he said.