Ahern ‘did not delay’ Mahon probe

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern last night denied allegations he had delayed the investigations of the Mahon Tribunal and had not co-operated fully with requests for documentation.

In an uncharacteristically direct statement, Mr Ahern refuted the allegations in last weekend’s Sunday Independent - calling them lies.

“I want to take this opportunity to unreservedly refute that allegation. It is a lie,” he said.

“I did not delay the operation of the Tribunal in relation to the forthcoming Quarryvale module or any module. Any suggestion to the contrary is nonsense,” Mr Ahern continued.

Rounding on media coverage of allegations concerning him and the planning Tribunal, Mr

Ahern said: “I have had to endure malicious, biased and misleading reports in the media about my alleged involvement in events 15 years ago. Some of these articles have been accompanied by sensationalist and untrue headlines,” he said

The Sunday Independent alleged that Mr Ahern had delayed the Mahon Tribunal for five years by not providing the Tribunal with five sets of documents relating to Government dealings with property developer Tom Gilmartin, despite requests to do so.

The documents in question - which Mr Ahern had outlined in a statement to the Dáil in 1999 - include a letter from former Fianna Fáil general secretary Martin Macken to the then EU Commissioner Padraig Flynn, raising the issue of the infamous £50,000 Gilmartin donation.

Another letter, forwarded to the Tribunal, was sent to the then Minister for State at the Department of Tourism, Seamus Brennan by Mr Flynn in 1989. Also handed over was a Dept of the Environment memo of a meeting of Mr Flynn and Mr Brennan with Mr Gilmartin and his associates.

In addition another batch of documents includes a letter from then Finance Minister Ray MacSharry to former Tourism Minister John Wilson.

Mr Ahern said the Tribunal was always aware of the documents since he had laid details of them on the Dáil record in 1999.

All the documents had been sent to the Tribunal, he said.

“As part of the process of making discovery, I have furnished the documents referred to in my statement to the Tribunal,” he said.

Mr Ahern said the only documents not sent were those relating to a meeting on September 28, 1989 between Mr Ahern and Mr Gilmartin.

“There are no notes of my meeting with Mr Gilmartin ... therefore these could not be sent to the Tribunal,” he said.