Widow kept Ahern’s cheque for sentimentality
“Fintan would have considered himself a friend of Bertie Ahern,” said Ms Gunne yesterday. “They would have met at matches and socially.”
Ms Gunne and her children decided not to cash Mr Ahern’s cheque issued in September 2006 but to write a cheque for the same amount and send it to the Mater Hospital’s cancer research unit, which had treated the well-known Dublin auctioneer who died in October 1997.
Described as friends of Mr Ahern, the late Mr Gunne and five other businessmen each gave £2,500 in cash in late 1993 to help the then minister for finance with his legal bills arising from his marital separation.
The total “dig-out” monies, which amounted to £22,500, were organised by former Fianna Fáil fundraiser Des Richardson and the late Gerry Brennan, who was Mr Ahern’s solicitor. The tribunal has heard that Mr Ahern himself had taken out an AIB bank loan for his legal costs at about the same time.
In the wake of the public disclosures in 2006 that businessmen had given the money to Mr Ahern, the Taoiseach indicated he would repay the money and the interest. He issued personal cheques to each of the six for €5,914, representing the original £2,500 loan and interest of £2,740.
Asked by tribunal lawyer Henry Murphy SC if the friendship between her husband and Mr Ahern was related to politics, she replied: “No, definitely.”
Questioned whether she knew Mr Richardson, she said: “We used to meet Des Richardson after Mass in Donnybrook church.”
Ms Gunne said she was unaware of the loan at the time and was surprised when she heard of her husband’s payment to Mr Ahern through the media. It came as a surprise, “although Fintan was very generous with people who were in need”, she said.
When they received Mr Ahern’s repayment cheques, the five other businessmen endorsed them and returned them to the Taoiseach’s constituency office, requesting they be given to a charity. The tribunal heard these cheques were donated to CARI, the children’s charity, of which the Taoiseach’s separated wife Miriam is patron and a long-time fundraiser.
Asked why she kept Mr Ahern’s cheque, Ms Gunne said she had discussed the matter with her children and they decided for sentimental reasons to hold on to it and give a cheque to the Mater Hospital for the same amount, as there was a lecture theatre in the hospital dedicated to her late husband.
Meanwhile, businessman Desmond Maguire, a director of Euro Workforce Ltd, told the tribunal he had no involvement in generating or issuing a bogus invoice from his company that was used to back up a payment linked to Mr Ahern.
Evidence has been heard how NCB Stockbrokers wrote a cheque for £5,000 in December 1993 following a discussion between Mr Richardson and former NCB managing director Pádraic O’Connor.
Mr Richardson has told the tribunal he asked for a personal donation from Mr O’Connor for Mr Ahern’s legal bills, while Mr O’Connor insists the money was requested to part-fund the Taoiseach’s constituency office in Drumcondra.
The invoice from Euro Workforce, with which Mr Richardson had an association, billed for a health and safety survey of NCB’s offices that was never carried out.
Mr Maguire said he bought the company’s business from Mr Richardson in 1992. The tribunal is probing a number of companies with links to Mr Richardson.
Asked by Mr Richardson’s lawyer Jim O’Callaghan BL if Mr Richardson had anything to do with this Euro Workforce invoice, Mr Maguire replied: “Not that I am aware of, but I can’t be 100% sure.”
He said neither Mr Richardson nor anyone else had asked him to prepare the invoice.
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