When over £8.5m, `you stop getting shocked'

At one point Mr Coughlan said he found it hard to imagine Mr Kavanagh would not have mentioned to Mr Ahern that he had given …

At one point Mr Coughlan said he found it hard to imagine Mr Kavanagh would not have mentioned to Mr Ahern that he had given Mr Haughey £100,000.

Mr Coughlan: "Might it not seem unusual that where somebody is expressing annoyance about not receiving a receipt that he wouldn't indicate (a) the level of contribution and (b) the fact that he had handed it to the leader of the party himself in his house?"

Mr Ahern: "I don't think he expressed either. I just got a verbal bashing. . ."

Mr Coughlan: ". . .That's what I was just wondering about. . .I thought that if you were getting a verbal bashing, he would have said, `I handed this to Charles Haughey in his house for a hundred thousand pounds - and nobody ever gave me a receipt'."

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Mr Ahern: "The remarks were made against me."

Mr Coughlan "Against Fianna Fail."

Mr Ahern "Yeah."

Later, Mr Ahern was asked how he reacted when Mr Sean Fleming told him last week Mr Kavanagh had in fact given Mr Haughey £100,000.

Mr Coughlan: "This must have been first of all a surprise to you . . .if not a shock, would that be fair to say? Or maybe when you're Taoiseach you're beyond being shocked about anything?"

Mr Ahern: "Maybe when it goes over eight and a half million you stop getting shocked."