Dunne to tell Moriarty Tribunal he forgot to inform inquiry of meeting

FORMER supermarket boss Ben Dunne is expected to tell the Moriarty Tribunal that he simply forgot to inform an earlier public inquiry about an important meeting he had with the Revenue Commissioners which was arranged by Charles Haughey.

The Moriarty Tribunal heard last week that a capital gains tax bill on the Dunnes Stores family trust was reduced from £38.8 million to £16 million following a meeting between chairman of the Revenue Commissioners Seamus Paircéir and Mr Dunne in 1987.

Details of the meeting, which were revealed for the first time last week, showed that it was arranged at the request of the former Taoiseach.

Neither Mr Dunne, Mr Paircéir nor Mr Haughey informed the McCracken Tribunal about such a meeting when asked about their contact with Revenue officials.

No notes of the meeting are understood to have been made by Mr Paircéir, although some other Revenue officials were aware it had taken place.

Mr Dunne is to appear as a witness before the Moriarty Tribunal this week.

The former head of Dunnes Stores told the McCracken Tribunal that he had never met the head of Revenue before a meeting he had with Mr Paircéir’s successor, Philip Curran, in March 1988. The second meeting between Mr Dunne and the country’s most senior tax official was also arranged at the request of Mr Haughey.

The McCracken Tribunal - held in 1997 - made no adverse findings against the former Fianna Fáil leader in relation to the matter. Its chairman, Mr Justice Brian McCracken, said he was “quite satisfied” that the only part played by Mr Haughey in the meeting was “to actually arrange it.”

Although the McCracken Tribunal found no evidence of Mr Haughey exercising his influence for the benefit of Mr Dunne or Dunnes Stores, it said it was “quite unacceptable” for the any member of the Oireachtas to receive personal gifts from prominent businessmen.

Mr Dunne is also expected to be quizzed about the circumstances in which he hired Mr Paircéir as a tax consultant following his retirement from Revenue in September 1987.

The Moriarty Tribunal has so far uncovered two sets of payments totalling £232,000 and Stg£282,500 to Mr Haughey by Dunnes Stores which were not disclosed to the McCracken team by either Mr Dunne or Mr Haughey.

Overall, the two public inquiries have discovered that Mr Haughey received around £8.5 million from wealthy businessmen between 1987 and 1993, including a total of £1.9m from Mr Dunne and Dunnes Stores.

The former Taoiseach’s lawyers have recently told the inquiry that Mr Haughey remains “gravely ill” and is, therefore, unable to provide any information about his recollection of events.