FORMER TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern told the Mahon tribunal yesterday that sterling worth £15,450 lodged to his and his daughters' building society accounts in 1994 came from accumulated sterling savings he had not mentioned previously at the tribunal, and from the proceeds of horse-racing bets.
He said a further lodgement of £8,000 sterling to his daughters' accounts in 1996 was the result of particularly successful horse-racing bets in that year.
Mr Ahern's evidence, on what was his first appearance before the tribunal since resigning from office, at times prompted laughter from the public gallery, which was close to full.
There were robust responses from Mr Ahern when tribunal counsel Des O'Neill SC questioned him about the circumstances surrounding the taking of evidence from Mr Ahern's former secretary, Gráinne Carruth, in March. Mr O'Neill said that what Mr Ahern told RTÉ about the matter, in an interview earlier this year after had he announced his decision to resign, was "totally untrue".
But Mr Ahern said Ms Carruth had been called before he had had time to deal with the new information that had emerged concerning the lodgements. He had been in Europe and then Washington and "before I got back to you . . . you and your huge legal team had Gráinne Carruth in here trying to hang her."
"If you want to justify your existence and say you were right, I'll fight you tooth and nail, inside and outside, and say you were wrong," Mr Ahern told Mr O'Neill.
When chairman Judge Alan Mahon intervened to calm matters, Mr Ahern responded, "I didn't start this," prompting laughter from the public gallery.
Mr Ahern said in evidence last February that certain cash lodgements to his building society account in 1994 were the proceeds of salary cheques. However, in March building society records were discovered by the tribunal which showed that three lodgements, in March, May and October of 1994, were made with sterling in cash, as were smaller lodgements to Mr Ahern's daughters' accounts.
Asked about certain sterling lodgements, Mr Ahern said that until he had been shown the building society records in March, he believed he had spent the sterling on sporting occasions and other expenditure, but having seen the records he had concluded that he must have lodged it to his account.