Neither Allied Irish Banks nor Mr Michael Lowry sought clearance from the Central Bank to open an account on his behalf in the Channel Islands, the tribunal was told.
Counsel for the tribunal, Mr John Coughlan SC, suggested to Mr Lowry yesterday that it could be said "with total certainty" that exchange control permission from the Central Bank - which would have allowed him to have a deposit account abroad - was not secured. Mr Lowry said yesterday he did not know he had to obtain any approval to open such an account; rather he "left the matter to the bank".
He could not recollect any bank official raising the question of exchange controls with him. Nor, to his recollection, had they raised the necessity of having Central Bank approval for the opening of a deposit account abroad.
AIB has yet to produce any evidence that exchange control permission was sought from the Central Bank. Mr Lowry said he only really became aware of how irregular the transaction was "when my troubles broke and when commentators started to look at it".
The former Fine Gael minister contradicted earlier evidence from Mr Seamus O'Neill of J.C. Investments Ltd on the circumstances in which he visited the O'Connell Street branch of AIB to open the offshore account.
Mr Lowry said he could not recall meeting Mr O'Neill or anyone from J.C. Investment Ltd and had never heard of the company before the tribunal. He had asked two administrators of his own company if they recalled him meeting Mr O'Neill on another occasion in Thurles, and neither of them could.
He had no recollection of meeting Mr O'Neill outside AIB in O'Connell Street and his "clear view" was that he had visited the branch on his own.
However, he said he would "have to accept" what Mr O'Neill had said.
Mr Lowry said it was his belief that the £55,000 sterling draft he he used to open the account in the Channel Islands was funded by cheques he had received from Dunnes Stores Bangor. He agreed with Mr Coughlan that there was no trace in his Dame Street current or savings accounts of that money. Nor was there any record of a transaction between the two branches which would have allowed the draft to be obtained.
Mr Lowry also agreed that he could not have carried cheques totalling that amount around in his pocket, and said he did not arrive at the O'Connell Street branch with £55,000 in cash.
Mr Coughlan said it was an "extraordinary mystery" that a bank draft to the value of £55,000 sterling was bought by Mr Lowry but that there was no record of the movement of the money used to buy the draft and no definite recollection on Mr Lowry's part of the transaction.
