Analysis:The tribunal must decide if Bertie Ahern received a large dollar amount, writes Colm Keena.
The evidence given over 3½ days by the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, clashes with the available bank records on a number of the transactions being examined.
The transactions that formed the focus of this phase of the tribunal's inquiries were all large cash transactions involving foreign currency. That currency was sterling, according to Ahern, but the tribunal appears concerned that in one instance it may have in fact been dollars. Of course, if Ahern was involved in a large dollar transaction, then he would have been misleading the tribunal and the question would arise as to where the dollars came from.
This matter, concerning the lodgement of £28,772.90 on December 5th, 1994, received most of the attention yesterday.
Ahern's evidence is clear. He received a large amount of cash from his friend Michael Wall on December 3rd, 1994. The money was cash, all or mostly sterling cash, and he gave it to his then partner, Celia Larkin, to lodge to AIB O'Connell St on Monday, December 5th.
It is a fact that a lodgement was made by Larkin, to a newly opened account, for the amount quoted above. It is also a fact that when one of the dollar exchange rates in operation on the day is applied to the amount lodged, and a £5 optional commission charge that was also in operation on the day is subtracted, the amount you come out with is exactly $45,000.
No one engaged on Ahern's side, be they a lawyer, banker or accountant, has disputed that calculation.
Ahern has contended that the calculation only results in a clear dollar amount when an inappropriate dollar exchange rate is applied, but yesterday he drew back from this position.
On the day in question the bank operated a rate for dollar amounts up to a value of £500, and a better rate for an amount of dollars up to a value of £2,500. For amounts above that value, the customer could seek a better rate from the branch, and the branch could telephone headquarters and be given a rate. The rate given could be the rate for deals with a value of up to £2,500.
Des O'Neill outlined all of this and said that the application of the £2,500 rate in such an instance would not be inappropriate or wrong. Ahern agreed.
Larkin, in evidence, said she had simply handed over the briefcase containing the money, without looking inside. She could not confirm in what currency the cash was held and never mentioned seeking a good rate.
The branch only took in sterling worth £1,921.55 on the day in question, and Ahern agreed that if the bank records were correct, then the lodgement could not have been predominantly sterling, as he contends.
The bank's records include figures for each day of the total amount of sterling taken in, and the total amount of other, non-sterling foreign currency taken in. The norm in both instances was approximately £2,000, but on the day of the lodgement being examined, the non-sterling total was £28,969.34 - enough to accommodate $45,000.
The main argument from Ahern's side in relation to these records was that the important facts in the records were the figures, and that the "narratives" might be wrong. Bank witnesses agreed with this argument that the sterling figure might be the other foreign currency figure, and vice versa.
Ahern engaged Patrick Stronge, a former executive with the Bank of Ireland, whose brief report on the matter was read out yesterday. He said the "coincidence" of a round-sum dollar figure arising would require a breach of bank procedure. The breach he was referring to was the use of an "inappropriate" exchange rate.
He also said it was his experience, and this was supported by the AIB witnesses, that the narratives in bank records could be incorrect.
He said the available evidence did not "substantiate" a dollar lodgement and was "consistent" with the lodgement being made up mostly of sterling, with some Irish pounds.
Ahern's counsel, Conor Maguire SC, concentrated on the dollar issue in his short examination of his client. Mostly he spoke about what happened when the AIB branch remitted foreign currency to headquarters the day after the Larkin lodgement.
The topic is not easy to follow. Mr Maguire outlined how a bank witness, Rosemary Murtagh, had in her evidence agreed that certain of the facts concerning this remittance to headquarters "destroyed" the tribunal's hypothesis concerning the remittance.
However, O'Neill, in his comments yesterday, seemed to indicate his view that the examination of the remittance records failed to resolve the matter one way or the other.