Richardson evidence:Fianna Fáil records do not show any evidence of individual receipts or "thank you" notes for payments made by donors at a fundraising dinner in Cork, the Mahon tribunal heard yesterday.
Former Fianna Fáil chief fundraiser Des Richardson told the tribunal that it was his practice to write "thank you" notes to donors when they made substantial donations to the party.
However, counsel for the tribunal Patricia Dillon SC said records supplied by Fianna Fáil to the tribunal did not contain any such letters and the only receipts recorded for donations given at the event were made out to "Cork fundraising dinner" and not to individuals.
Developer Tom Gilmartin had told the tribunal that Cork developer Owen O'Callaghan told him he gave £150,000 in a briefcase to former taoiseach Albert Reynolds at a dinner in Cork in March 1994.
A dinner did take place in the home of Cork chartered accountant Niall Welch on March 11th that year, the tribunal had heard, and up to 20 people attended, including Mr Reynolds, Mr O'Callaghan, Mr Richardson, and former Cork Fianna Fáil fundraiser, the late Denis Murphy.
On the night of the dinner, £50,000 was raised, including £10,000 from Mr O'Callaghan. Most of the donations were cheques, but £4,000 cash was included.
It was one of the most profitable such events for Fianna Fáil, Mr Richardson said.
He told the tribunal he had no part in organising the dinner and did not collect the donations himself. But he was given the money by Mr Welch or Mr Murphy, he said.
Following a request from Mr Welch, he delayed his return to Dublin the following morning to collect further donations from two other dinner guests.
He said he could not remember their names and could not recall who donated the £4,000 in cash.
He pointed out that he had probably attended 2,000 similar functions over the eight or nine years he fundraised for the party.
Ms Dillon asked if it was common practice to collect names of donors and to pass that list on to Fianna Fáil headquarters. Mr Richardson agreed that it was. Ms Dillon asked where the Cork dinner list was now and he said he had no idea, but that he had passed all of his documentation on to party headquarters.
She also asked if there was any chance he did not issue "thank you" letters to the donors. He said it was his normal practice to do so.
Ms Dillon said the tribunal did have copies of "thank you" letters sent to dinner guests who donated to the party at a later stage, but there were none for those who donated on the night.
She noted that the £50,000 raised at the dinner was lodged to the Fianna Fáil account on Monday 14th in two separate lodgements of £25,000 each. She asked Mr Richardson why he split the money.
Initially, Mr Richardson suggested that he may have used two lodgement slips so that he could list the names of the donors on the reverse of the slips. However, when Ms Dillon pointed out that the the backs of the slips were blank, he withdrew the suggestion. He said he had "no idea whatsoever" why he had split the money into two lodgements.
