For some time now, Bertie Ahern has had very good reason to believe that there had been very substantial misappropriation of Fianna Fail funds. The following was the evidence:
A cheque co-signed by him and drawn on the Fianna Fail leader's allowance, dated June 16th, 1989, for £20,000, was lodged to an account of Charles Haughey.
Padraig Flynn had allegedly received £50,000 for Fianna Fail in September 1989 and had failed to pass on this money to the party.
Ray Burke received £30,000 from Fitzwilton for Fianna Fail in June 1989 and had refused to pass on more than £10,000.
Ray Burke had told the Dail in September 1997 that he had passed on £10,000 of a £30,000 donation he had received in June 1989, but this had not happened.
In addition, the McCracken tribunal had revealed that Mr Haughey's living expenses amounted to £708,850 in the period August 1st, 1988, to January 31st, 1991 (£23,600 a month). Although huge payments from secret donors had been uncovered, these disclosed payments would not have covered Mr Haughey's expenses, thus giving rise to the possibility that Mr Haughey may have helped himself to substantial funds belonging to Fianna Fail. Such suspicions might have been fuelled by the refusal of Mr Haughey to respond to queries about party funds submitted to him by Bertie Ahern. Ahern's apprehensions about possible misappropriation of these funds might have been increased further by a concern that party officials were not telling him all they knew.
For instance, a senior official in the party's head office, Sean Sherwin, had been aware from September 1989 about the £50,000 received by Padraig Flynn and, it is claimed, did not pass that information on to Ahern. Sean Fleming, the former finance director, knew from June 1989 of the payment of £30,000 by Fitzwilton to Ray Burke but did not tell Ahern. an Fleming should also have known that Ray Burke was misleading the Dail in September 1997 when he said he had handed over £10,000 of the £30,000 JMSE payment to Fianna Fail, but he says he said nothing about it at the time to Bertie Ahern.
Ahern might also have been concerned about repeated media comment about the misappropriation of Fianna Fail funds in the course of that 1989 election campaign. I have referred to this matter repeatedly in columns in this newspaper. On January 27th, 1999, I wrote: "In the course of the 1987 and 1989 general election campaigns there were a series of rows within Fianna Fail between party fund-raisers and senior figures within the party over funds. Party fund-raisers were aware that senior figures had obtained large donations for the party but had failed to pass over the donations to the central fund." (Is it likely that the party officials who told me of this did not tell Ahern?)
There were the revelations of the possible misappropriation of funds donated for the Brian Lenihan transplant in 1989. If such funds went missing, was it not likely that party funds went the same way?
The manager of a small company, presented with such evidence, would surely call in the auditors. What conceivable explanation is there for Ahern's failure to do the obvious? We are asked to believe that Ahern never made any connection between the mounting evidence of misappropriation of funds and the "verbal bashing" he received from Mark Kavanagh in May 1996 over the failure of the party to receipt a substantial donation made in 1989.
We are asked to accept (a) that when this issue arose in May 1996 Kavanagh never mentioned the amount he had donated in 1989 (£100,000); (b) that he never mentioned the peculiar manner in which he was asked to make that payment; (c) that Kavanagh was never asked about the size of the 1989 donation; and (d) that when Ahern inquired why the donation had not been receipted he was not informed that it had been entered in the accounts as coming from an "anonymous" source.
Bertie Ahern seems to have a virtual existence. Obvious questions do not get asked, his closest advisers omit to tell him important information at crucial times, and he remains passive in the face of mounting evidence of fraud within his party.
Sean Fleming also seems to lead a curious existence. He was an impressive witness at the tribunal last week and he is/was clearly a meticulous accountant.
In his evidence on Wednesday last, the former party fund-raiser, Paul Kavanagh, said that one of the few people with whom he shared information about Fianna Fail fund-raising in the 1989 election campaign was an Fleming. Kavanagh said very few people had been targeted for a donation of £100,000 and one of these was Mark Kavanagh.
Having visited Mark Kavanagh, Paul Kavanagh was confident £100,000 would be forthcoming from him for party funds. It would be surprising if he did not share this confidence with his few fund-raising confidants, including Fleming.
Fleming must therefore have been disappointed when only £25,000 came in, and he must have thought it odd to have been directed by Charles Haughey to enter this donation as an anonymous one in the party accounts and to deliver the receipt to Mr Haughey's office and not directly to the donor. It must have caused some surprise to Fleming and, given his close association with Paul Kavanagh, it would be surprising if the matter was not discussed by them.
All the more reason then that Sean Fleming would have been prompted to tell Bertie Ahern all he knew when he was told in May 1996 that no receipt for the £25,000 had been received by Mark Kavanagh.
vbrowne@irish-times.ie