The £50,000 given by a developer to former EU commissioner Mr Pádraig Flynn was lodged in bogus non-resident accounts, largely invested offshore and contributed to the purchase of a Mayo farm qualifying for massive EU grants, the tribunal has heard.
Mrs Dorothy Flynn, wife of the former politician, who bought the farm near Killala in 1997, has qualified for £140,000 in forestry grants even though she has never set foot on the land, it was revealed yesterday.
Mrs Flynn said she had no recollection of opening up the bogus non-resident accounts in her and her husband's names, although she agreed they existed.
Mrs Flynn said she "presumed" that she was the person who negotiated the £50,000 cheque developer Mr Tom Gilmartin gave to her husband. This was negotiated at the AIB branch in Castlebar on June 7th, 1989, and debited from Mr Gilmartin's account in Bank of Ireland, Blanchardstown, on June 12th, 1989.
This money was included in a lodgement of £53,920 on June 8th to a joint non-resident account in the names of Mr and Mrs Flynn. The address given for three non-resident accounts held by the Flynns was Chiswick in London; however, they lived in Castlebar at this time.
Mrs Flynn said she had not provided the London address used to set up the accounts. She had no idea how this came about. She had not filled out the application form and had no recollection of seeing the document.
She also told Ms Patricia Dillon SC, for the tribunal, that she had no recollection of filling out the non-resident tax declaration forms used to set up the accounts, and which bear her signature.
Asked whether she had any recollection of having three non-resident accounts at AIB in Castlebar, she said she had. But she did not realise she was opening non-resident accounts in the 1980s. "I didn't know what they were."
She said she could not remember opening any non-resident accounts.
Asked whether she was suggesting the bank had opened the accounts without her permission, she replied: "I don't remember, so I would not dream of suggesting that".
Referring to the account into which the Gilmartin money was lodged, Ms Dillon said a total of £94,000 was lodged into this between 1987 and 1989. She asked whether the witness could recollect anything about these lodgements.
Mrs Flynn accepted she was the person who would have lodged this money but said she could not remember making them.
Asked where the money came from, she said it "possibly" consisted of election contributions to her husband.
Ms Dillon pointed out that the Flynns' lawyers, Mr Pat Moran, when asked by the tribunal to account for the lodgements, had originally described them as "likely to represent an accumulation of political contributions". However, he later wrote to the tribunal again to say this position was "erroneous" and said the Flynns did not know the source of the money.
While the Flynns were unable to provide a detailed breakdown of the lodgements, they were not saying the money consisted of election contributions alone, Mr Moran wrote to the tribunal. However, they "formally rejected" any suggestion that Mr Flynn got £110,000 in election contributions during this period.
Mr Flynn did not keep a record of the donations he received, and did not recollect the amounts involved, according to Mr Moran.
Ms Dillon said the total lodgement to the three non-resident accounts came to £145,000. With the exception of Mr Gilmartin's money and £16,000 used to buy sites, the Flynns had been unable to provide an explanation for these lodgements.
Mrs Flynn agreed with counsel that she remembered nothing about the accounts except for the fact that they were opened.
Asked whether she remembered Mr Gilmartin's cheque, she said she did not. She agreed she made withdrawals from the accounts, and put the money in the safe at home.
According to Ms Dillon, £25,000 of the Gilmartin money was withdrawn from the non-resident account in November 1989 and invested in three investment funds by the Flynns' daughter, Beverley.
Two of the funds were encashed in 1993 and 1994 and the proceeds lodged in an account held by the Flynns in NIB Monaghan, counsel said. This money was then used to buy a farm at Coolanass, near Killala, in March 1997. The purchase was made in Mrs Flynn's name for an amount of £37,553.
However, Mrs Flynn disagreed, saying the money for the farm had come not from the Monaghan account but from a different investment account. She continued to insist on this even after the tribunal, after a short break, established that no withdrawal for this amount had been made from the investment account mentioned.
She agreed with counsel that the fact that the amount withdrawn from the Monaghan account was the same as that used to buy the farm was a "singular coincidence".
According to Ms Dillon, a person had to show that 25 per cent of income came from farming in order to qualify for forestry grants. Mrs Flynn earned income of over €1,100 from haymaking on the land, and therefore qualified for the payment of an annual grant of €7,064 over 20 years.
When Ms Dillon said this was the "ultimate destination" of Mr Gilmartin's money, Mrs Flynn said she disagreed.
"For someone who described herself as dealing extensively with finances, you have very limited information available to the tribunal," counsel stated.
Mrs Flynn said she had no legal or accountancy training. She agreed that she could offer "no assistance" in relation to the three non-resident accounts, other than they existed. She had nothing to do with any investments.
She agreed that she had never seen the farm, nor set foot in it. She had never farmed it in any meaningful way. She did not know who had found it to buy.
