A couple of bob to lodge

[stephenite]

I know the money in the safe was already known about - but don't anyone try and say that there is not something completely dodgy about this mans finances

Fomr the Indo : Lorna Someoneorother


TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern told his banker that he wanted to lodge "a couple of bob", and then turned up with IR£22,500.


Mr Ahern made the lodgement a week after he had taken out a loan of IR£19,000 to cover bills associated with his marital separation.

The "couple of bob" was IR£15,000 in cash, a bank draft for IR£5,000, which was made out to Fianna Fail's then chief fundraiser Des Richardson, and a cheque for IR£2,500, made out to cash and signed by Mr Richardson, the Mahon tribunal heard yesterday.

That money is now known as the "first goodwill loan" -- or dig out -- to Mr Ahern from his friends in Dublin.

It has also emerged that Mr Ahern had over IR£32,000 in the Irish Permanent Building Society account, but he only declared having IR£5,000 when the loan he got from AIB to pay bills associated with his marital separation was up for review in 1995.

In total, the Taoiseach lodged IR£72,500, mainly in cash, in an eight-month period between December 1993 and August 1994, to various saving accounts, and this was before he had begun to make repayments on his IR£19,115.97 loan.

Philip Murphy, the banker who handled Mr Ahern's loan of IR£19,115.97 at the AIB branch on 37/38 O'Connell Street, Dublin, said that Mr Ahern came into his office and told him he wanted to lodge "a couple of bob" on December 30 1993.

He said he wasn't surprised when Mr Ahern arrived in his office saying he had money to lodge, even though this was only a week after he had taken out the loan.

He thought he might have suggested to Mr Ahern that the minister should pay off his loan with the cash he had, "but he obviously didn't do that" and, instead, went ahead and opened a Special Savings Account.

Mr Murphy said he didn't remember the cheques which Mr Ahern brought in but he did remember the cash.

The following April, he went out to St Luke's in Drumcondra, Mr Ahern's constituency office, after Mr Ahern phoned him and told him that he wanted to open an account for "the girls" (Mr Ahern's two daughters).

"He told me he had money in the safe and I told him he was stupid to keep it in the safe," Mr Murphy recalled. He said the minister also told him that he had other money in another safe in Government Buildings.

"I wasn't hugely surprised when he told me he had IR£30,000 in the safe in St Luke's. I didn't get overly excited about it," Mr Murphy added.

Of the IR£30,000, IR£27,164.44 went to top up the Special Savings Account, which had a limit of IR£50,000, and the balance of IR£2,835.56 was lodged to a current account in Mr Ahern's name.

The following August Mr Murphy went again to St Luke's, where Mr Ahern handed him IR£20,000 in cash, to open an account for his daughters.