Fianna Fail TD Ms Beverley Cooper-Flynn told the High Court yesterday it never occurred to her to have suspicions whether customers she was dealing with while she was employed by National Irish Bank had money in bogus non-resident accounts.
It had never happened that she had taken or counted substantial amounts of cash from customers, Ms Cooper-Flynn said. She thought she would recall sitting down and counting cash or issuing a receipt.
She was being cross-examined by counsel for RTE and a journalist, Charlie Bird, on the third day of her action alleging libel against the station, Mr Bird and a retired farmer, Mr James Howard.
Ms Cooper-Flynn (34) claims she was libelled on RTE broadcasts in June and July 1998 and that words used on the programmes meant she had instigated a scheme whose object was the evasion of the lawful payment of tax. The defendants deny she was libelled.
During cross-examination by Mr Kevin Feeney SC, Ms Cooper-Flynn was questioned at length about documents relating to NIB investment products and CMI personal portfolios. Asked if she recalled the bank being worried it would lose some of its capital base if money in bogus non-resident accounts went offshore, Ms Cooper-Flynn said she did not. Asked what she thought was meant by "hot money," she said she took it to be money undeclared to the Revenue. She agreed that any suspicions about such money should be reported to the authorities in the bank.
Mr Feeney asked Ms Cooper-Flynn about a letter dated July 30th, 1990, from Mr Patrick Cooney, of NIB's financial advisory services, which referred to a number of investment schemes.
It concluded: "Finally, we have the people who have money invested offshore already, or whose money is "hot". In this scenario, we should in almost all cases direct the monies into our New Bond, `The Emerald International Portfolio,' which is a combination of the above funds."
Ms Cooper-Flynn said she had never read that letter. It was possibly geared towards sales people. She agreed she had sold the Emerald product on about three occasions. To a sales person, the term "hot" meant two things - undeclared money or a person who was "hot" for an investment or pension, somebody about to do business.
Counsel asked about a reference in the CMI personal portfolio documents to there being no disclosure of income to the Irish tax authorities. Ms Cooper-Flynn said she did not draw it up. Asked what was the benefit of something not being disclosed to the Irish tax authorities, she said it indicated to a person that they had to make their own disclosures. Everybody was obliged to pay tax.
When it was suggested that the culture and approach of the NIB financial services division were to seek to direct "hot money" to be invested in NIB, she said that was not her culture in NIB and she did not believe it was the culture of the division. It was not the case that people with "hot money" were encouraged to go into the scheme.
Ms Cooper-Flynn said she was an investment adviser. When tax issues were raised, she would recommend that clients go to their own tax advisers.