Haughey accepted £50,000 in passports deal

FORMER Taoiseach Charles J Haughey backed efforts to have non-nationals given Irish passports after receiving £50,000.

Wealthy Saudi bloodstock owner Mahmoud Fustok routed the money through Dr John O’Connell, a former Fianna Fáil health minister.

Dr O’Connell had sponsored about a dozen naturalisation applications from Mr Fustok’s relatives and associates.

The tribunal dismissed the Fustok/Haughey explanation for the £50,000 as payment for a yearling horse or a share in a stallion as “highly unconvincing”.

Moriarty said: “The tribunal is satisfied that, while Mr Fustok may well have purchased a horse from Abbeville Stud, the payment of £50,000 in February 1985, which was made in a secretive and clandestine manner, by being channelled through Dr O’Connell’s bank account, did not relate to that or to any other commercial transaction, but constituted a payment by Mr Fustok to Mr Haughey and was specifically connected with the naturalisation of certain of Mr Fustok’s relatives.”

When Dr O’Connell rang to say he had money for him, he said Mr Haughey asked him to make his cheque out to cash. The proceeds went into a secretive offshore bank account used to fund Mr Haughey’s lavish lifestyle.

At the time Mr Haughey’s gross State annual entitlements came to just over £31,000, the tribunal noted.

Moriarty said Dr O’Connell knew or ought to have known the £50,000 payment related to the naturalisations.

“Further, in the manner and procedures employed by Dr O’Connell in the course of sponsoring the naturalisation of the said non-nationals, Dr O’Connell conducted himself inappropriately.”

Last night, the Department of Justice said a review of these naturalisation cases would be carried out once the Moriarty report had been fully considered.