Secretary `cannot recall' donor list

A former private secretary to Mr Charles Haughey said she could not remember a list giving the names of the donors to the fund…

A former private secretary to Mr Charles Haughey said she could not remember a list giving the names of the donors to the fund for the late Mr Brian Lenihan's liver transplant.

Ms Eileen Foy, who was also the administrator of the leader's allowance account, said if Mr Paul Kavanagh, Fianna Fail fund-raiser, had told the tribunal recently that there was a donors' list, she would accept his word. Ms Foy agreed that she had said she had no recollection of compiling the list for Mr Kavanagh.

Mr John Coughlan SC, for the tribunal, claimed that Ms Foy had said payments in and out of Mr Lenihan's fund were recorded as part of the leader's allowance account records.

Ms Foy had said she mentioned to Mr Haughey some time in 1990 that expenditure exceeded the donations received. He had said he would discuss it with Mr Lenihan. As Mr Haughey was Taoiseach at the time, the records were kept in the Taoiseach's office.

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Mr Coughlan said that Ms Foy recalled Mr Lenihan approaching her and receiving instructions from Mr Haughey to effectively deflect him from seeing the records.

Ms Foy said she brought Mr Lenihan to see Mr Haughey. She agreed she had a recollection of that, but none of the list.

"The reason I remember Mr Lenihan coming in was because he asked for a copy of the list and I had been told that the list was confidential, as some people wanted to remain anonymous. And I was caught in a spot and I think he . . . he was such a gentleman and he knew I was caught, and he let me manoeuvre him in to Mr Haughey," Ms Foy said.

Mr Coughlan suggested she did, then, remember a list. Ms Foy said she knew there were donors but did not remember doing up a list.

Mr Coughlan asked on whose instruction such a list, were there one, would have been compiled. "If my memory serves me right, Paul Kavanagh asked me for the list because he said he gave it to Brian Lenihan subsequently", Ms Foy said.