Was the £5,000 NCB gave Bertie Ahern a personal or political donation, asks Colm Keena, Public Affairs Correspondent
More than 1.3 million people viewed Bertie Ahern's remarkable TV interview with Bryan Dobson last year, but few can have watched as closely as the former managing director of NCB Stockbrokers, Pádraic O'Connor.
Referring to £22,500 given to him in December 1993, Ahern said: "The money was raised, eh, by close friends, people who were close to me for most of my life. They are not political friends, they are personal friends and they are long-standing friends."
The money had been collected by his friend and solicitor, the late Gerard Brennan. Ahern said: "So then, unknown to me, he went to personal friends of mine: Paddy Reilly, Des Richardson, Pádraic O'Connor, Jim Nugent, David McKenna, Fintan Gunne, who is deceased, Mick Collins, Charlie Chawke, all personal friends of mine." The money was raised to help him pay legal expenses linked to his marriage separation, he said. "It is a debt of honour, it's a debt that I'll pay the interest on, and they all accept that."
This week at the Mahon tribunal, O'Connor gave sworn evidence about the matter and directly contradicted Ahern. He said he had professional contact with Ahern in the early 1990s, when Ahern was minister for finance, and was friendly with him, but he was not Ahern's friend in the sense indicated by Ahern.
He had, he said, authorised a payment of £5,000 from NCB to Ahern's Dublin Central constituency operation in December 1993, following what he said was an unwelcome request for such a donation from Ahern's associate, Des Richardson. He said he believed the cheque was issued on foot of a bogus invoice supplied to NCB by Richardson, for reasons of confidentiality.
Richardson, in his evidence, said he approached O'Connor as he and Brennan believed O'Connor was a friend of Ahern's who could be approached about such a sensitive matter. He said he requested the money for Ahern personally, and not for Ahern's political operation in Dublin Central. Richardson's counsel, Jim O'Callaghan BL, put it to O'Connor that it was precisely because the payment was for Ahern personally that O'Connor arranged for the payment by NCB by way of a bogus invoice.
"That's offensive and it's absolute nonsense," O'Connor responded.
In July of last year Richardson requested a meeting with O'Connor and asked him whether he had any documentation in relation to the payment, as the tribunal was making inquiries to do with Ahern's expenses. O'Connor said he hadn't. He told the tribunal he had told Richardson it was an NCB payment, and Richardson gave him nothing more than an "inkling" that his recollection wasn't "the only version of events".
"Do you mean you weren't told [ either that] it was part of a loan, or that it was part of a whip-around, or that it was a personal donation to Mr Ahern's personal legal expenses?" asked tribunal counsel Des O'Neill SC.
"I don't think I was told any of that, because I think my surprise was total when I heard that first in the interview with Bryan Dobson," O'Connor said. "I could not understand why this was being said."
OTHER THAN THE meeting in July with Richardson, O'Connor had heard nothing from Ahern prior to the RTÉ interview. A few days after the interview, he received a cheque in the post from Ahern, and a short note.
"Dear Padraig [ sic], I enclose a cheque in the amount of €11,829 in full and final settlement of the outstanding loan you very kindly extended to me all those years ago. I would like to thank you for your kind support and I apologise for the delay in settling this long outstanding matter. Yours sincerely, Bertie."
O'Connor was asked at the tribunal why he had not made a public statement to counter what had been said about him on RTÉ by Ahern.
He said he did not want to get involved in a political row. "Whatever Ahern decides to say to try and protect his political existence, that's politics . . . All I was interested in, frankly, was my own position and that of my family."
The tribunal must now decide which of the two men to believe, Richardson or O'Connor. If it chooses to believe O'Connor's version of events, it would seem that money donated for Ahern's Dublin Central constituency ended up being used for his personal expenses.