A TOTAL of almost £1.3 million was paid to accounts for the benefit of former Taoiseach, Mr Charles Haughey, the tribunal was told.
The money was paid through intermediaries into offshore accounts, and eventually found its way into an account controlled by Mr Desmond Traynor in the Guinness & Mahon merchant bank in Dublin.
Mr Traynor was a close personal friend of Mr Haughey and a former accountant in Mr Haughey's firm of accountants, Haughey Boland.
Counsel for the tribunal, Mr Denis McCullough SC, told the tribunal that it was Mr Traynor who approached Mr Dunne through his solicitor and friend Mr Noel Fox. When Mr Dunne agreed to give money to solve Mr Haughey's financial difficulties, Mr Traynor gave the instructions as to how the money was to be paid.
The first cheque, for the equivalent of £205,000, was to be made payable to Mr John Furze. Mr McCullough said that the Guinness & Mahon bank had set up Guinness & Mahon Trust Bank in the Cayman Islands. This was later bought by the Henry Ansbacher bank, based in London, and the name changed to Ansbacher Ltd, Cayman Islands.
Mr Furze became its joint managing director, and Mr Traynor was a non-executive director. He had "a fairly close business relationship with Mr Furze". In May 1987, Mr Haughey had a current account with Guinness & Mahon, where his friend Mr Traynor was managing director. It was overdrawn to the extent of about £261,000. It appeared that this was paid off through Guinness Mahon Ltd, the parent company of Guinness & Mahon Ireland Ltd.
The cheque was sent to Mr Traynor from Mr Fox. It was paid into Barclay's Bank in London, where Guinness & Mahon had an account.
Subsequently that money was transferred into an account in the name of Ansbacher Ltd of the Cayman Islands held by Guinness & Mahon (Ireland) Ltd.
Four other payments were made. Three were on the instructions of Mr Traynor to Mr Fox, and a fourth was separate, with neither of them involved.
In July 1988 Mr Traynor contacted Mr Fox seeking about which brought the total to the £700,000 originally sought by Mr Haughey. Again this was to be paid to Mr John Furze to an account in Barclay's Bank in London. Mr Dunne paid it out of a dollar account he held in Switzerland. These monies were subsequently paid to the, account of Ansbacher Ltd in Guinness & Mahon (Ireland).
In May 1989, Mr Fox was again contacted and asked for £150,000 from Mr Dunne, who agreed. The instructions this time were to pay it into the Royal Bank of Scotland in London, to the account of Henry Ansbacher. It came back to the Ansbacher Ltd account in Guinness & Mahon (Ireland) in Dublin.
In February 1990 a further donation was sought in the same way. The instructions were to pay £200,000 sterling to the account of Ansbacher Ltd in the bank of Henry Ansbacher in London. This was paid by Mr Dunne out of the account of Tutberry Ltd in the Isle of Man, one of his companies. It came back to the same account, as did the £150,000.
Mr McCullough said that Mr Fox would give evidence to the tribunal about the instructions he received concerning each of the payments.
One further and final payment was made to Mr Haughey. Mr Dunne would say in evidence that he personally gave him three separate payments of sterling £70,000 each, all bearing the date November 13th, 1991.
They were bank drafts made out to fictitious payees, but not requested by Mr Haughey. They were in Mr Dunne's possession for an unrelated reason. "He was not asked, but he handed them over to Mr Haughey and was thanked by him for doing so," said Mr McCullough.
They were paid into the Irish Intercontinental Bank in Dublin to an account maintained by the Ansbacher Ltd bank, for which Mr Des Traynor, Mr John Furze and Mr John Collins were the sole signatories.
Mr McCullough said that there was no evidence that Mr Haughey acted wrongly or improperly in receiving these monies. Mr Dunne did not ask for or receive any political or other favour in return. He would say he paid the monies because he "admired and respected" Mr Haughey and wished to help him in his financial difficulties.
Mr McCullough said that Mr Haughey had written to the tribunal saying "neither he nor any other connected person or relative" had received any money from Mr Dunne, other than what had already been revealed to the Buchanan inquiry.
He enclosed correspondence from Matheson Ormsby Prentice, solicitors for the, Dunnes Settlement Trust seeking the return of monies paid to him by Mr Ben Dunne, which, according to the letter, were "improperly diverted" to him and his reply.
Mr Haughey's restated no such monies have been paid no repayment arises. In a later letter to the solicitors, Mr Haughey stated. A careful perusal of the documents on their own does not corroborate, the allegations made against me, He asked the tribunal to furnish him with copies of all the statements made, concerning him. This, according to Mr McCullough, had been done.