Reilly widow: Thank God for Bertie
“Thank God for Bertie, now I can bury myself,” terminally-ill Ellen Reilly was reported to have exclaimed on receiving the cheque for €5,914.
In the wake of publicity that Mr Ahern had received payments of €38,000 in the early 1990s, Ms Reilly was expecting a cheque because it was mentioned the money loaned when he was Finance Minister was to be repaid.
Days after the Taoiseach went on television in September 2006 and named Ms Reilly’s late husband as one of eight people who had given him personal loans, this loan was repaid.
Thirteen years earlier the late Paddy Reilly had given Mr Ahern a £2,500 loan.
A butcher on Dublin’s northside, Paddy was a long-time personal friend of Mr Ahern’s and a constituency worker.
The loan, “to assist Mr Ahern with a personal matter”, had been given in late 1993, the tribunal heard. Mr Reilly died in August 1996 and Mr Ahern attended his funeral.
Unlike other donors who endorsed their repayment cheques to CARI, the children’s charity associated with Miriam Ahern, there was no suggestion the money he gave to Ms Reilly should go to charity.
Ms Reilly lodged Mr Ahern’s cheque to a credit union account. The amount was debited to Mr Ahern’s current account on November 2, 2006.
Giving evidence yesterday, Ms Reilly’s daughter Margaret Gaffney said she had no knowledge of the loan until her mother confirmed it after the payments to Mr Ahern became public in September 2006.
Nobody had contacted the family ahead of the broadcast to say her father’s name might be mentioned. When she heard the name Paddy Reilly she did not connect it to her late father.
“A couple of people said to me ‘is that your Paddy, Margaret?’ and I said ‘I think so, I’m not sure though’. I didn’t really make much of it,” she said.
Ms Gaffney agreed that so far as she knew, there was no contact by or behalf of Mr Ahern, after the RTÉ interview, to say he was sorry he had involved Mr Reilly publicly.
She told tribunal lawyer Henry Murphy SC her mother was aware that her late father had given Mr Ahern a loan. Ms Gaffney said her mother asked her to acknowledge the repayment and she wrote a note of thanks and posted it to St Luke’s constituency office.
Ms Gaffney said: “Paddy was very involved in politics all his life, so he would have seen Bertie on a lot of occasions.”
According to Ms Gaffney her father was a very private person and if he had dealings he would have kept them to himself.
Lobbyist Frank Dunlop is due to resume his evidence when the tribunal resumes next Tuesday.
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