Flynn challenges woman’s debt claim

A FORMER Government adviser has challenged claims by an Irish woman, caught up in an IRA money laundering investigation following the Northern Bank raid, that he still owes her money over a controversial business trip to Bulgaria a month after the robbery.

Phil Flynn, a former leading trade unionist and former chairman of the Bank of Scotland (Ireland), has also rejected claims that he had engaged Kathryn Nelson to organise the visit to check out investment opportunities in Bulgaria.

Mr Flynn, a staunch republican and former vice-president of Sinn Féin, was interviewed as part of the investigation into the £26.5 million (€39m) bank robbery in December 2004 after gardaí raided his home.

It followed the discovery that Mr Flynn was a director of an unlicensed money-lending company run by Cork businessman Ted Cunningham who became the focus of the garda probe into the robbery after €2m was discovered in his home.

Ms Nelson, who worked as a diplomatic liaison officer in the Balkans, met both Mr Flynn and Mr Cunningham on an investment trip to Bulgaria in January 2005 — one month after the robbery in Belfast, which was blamed on the IRA.

Last week, she told the Irish Examiner that she was going on hunger strike in her home in the Isle of Man, until she received a public statement from either the Government or gardaí confirming that she was not a suspect for the crime.

The 57-year-old woman, who comes originally from Athy, Co Kildare, claims her work has dried up as a result of being arrested during the investigation into the country’s biggest bank robbery.

However, Mr Flynn has this week rejected any suggestion he had ever worked with Ms Nelson on projects in Bulgaria. He claimed she had worked as an independent adviser.

“I wanted her to give me basic advice on Bulgaria’s economy,” he explained in an interview with the Sofia News Agency. However, he added: “She didn’t actually do anything for me personally. She provided services for Ted Cunningham. It was Ted Cunningham, who was engaged with her.”

Contrary to Ms Nelson’s claim that she is owed professional fees, understood to be €100,000, by the two businessmen, Mr Flynn insisted it was the adviser who owed him money.